Sun
Jul 19 2009
01:44 pm
Train Wreck, No ash spilled
By: SFCharlie

July 18 Norfolk-Southern Derailment at Kingston Fossil Plant (link...)
July 19, 2009:
"Yesterday evening, four cars of a train carrying ash from the Kingston site derailed as the train was switching tracks at the Kingston Fossil Plant. The railcars remained upright, and no ash was released. The cars have been lifted back onto undamaged track. Approximately 200 to 300 feet of rail tracks were damaged and are being repaired. No ash will be transported from the site Sunday, July 19, while TVA and its partner, Norfolk-Southern complete the repairs and investigate the cause of the derailment."

Topics:

I Can See That Happening

Submitted by personwhocares on July 19, 2009 - 2:07pm.

That is what TVA does, create disaster.

You would think disaster if

Submitted by jhubbd57 on July 20, 2009 - 8:36am.

You would think disaster if they could flip the switch on your house for your POWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It Would Be Like Camping Wouldn't It

Submitted by personwhocares on July 20, 2009 - 2:19pm.

I totally love camping, so being without electricity would be like going on a camping trip for me. I would want to be near a clean stream. It would be a good time to learn to eat a lot of raw fruits and vegetables and learn to cook in outdoor ovens using wood. It is amazing, but people learn to survive without it. You just can't have the microwave, TV, phone, hairdryer, hot water heater, washer and dryer, or lights which are fed by electricity from the coal fire plant.

Well, we would use candles for light or just go to bed when it gets dark. It is fun to sit around a campfire in the dark and tell stories. We would have well water (that is not contaminated) and wash our clothes in tubs and hang them on a line to dry which makes them smell heavenly. We would grow our own foods and because of working in the garden, instead of sitting at a computer, we would not be fat. We would communicate with our neighbors and family more instead of sitting in front of the TV or computer. Things would definitely be different, but we would survive.

Tasha Tudor

Submitted by LISAinTN on July 20, 2009 - 4:03pm.

There is a woman I have followed for years named Tasha Tudor. Sadly, she passed away last year. I think she was 93 years old. Anyway, she lived that way. She had no running water or electricity. Every fall she dipped a years supply of beeswax candles. She had goats for meat and milk and made her income as a famous childrens author/illustrator. Google her if you want more info. Her life was so interesting. I just love reading about her. I have several books about her life and when I just want to escape for awhile, I'll pull one out and read it. They help put things back in perspective for me. I would love to live like her, except I'd die without airconditioning. LOL

Lisa

Not necessarily would you die!

Submitted by farmer leaf on July 20, 2009 - 8:40pm.

If your house is poorly designed, or you lack shade trees, it might be uncomfortable, but we live quite well, comfortable and cool and we have never had AC since we came to Tennessee in 1974.

Living and teaching Earth friendly sustainable agricultural practices.

Ummmm

Submitted by LISAinTN on July 20, 2009 - 9:06pm.

Ummmmm, it was a figure of speech. I forgot there are people on here that take everything literally. lol And uncomfortable is an understatement. I have never liked the heat. As a matter of fact, when I was younger, it would make me physically ill sometimes.

Without nitpicking

Submitted by farmer leaf on July 21, 2009 - 9:01am.

let me just say that words do have power. We utter words and phrases without thinking.
Some examples.
"I would give my right arm for a cold drink." I wouldn't.
"That's a house to die for." How would it be of any value if one were dead? Doctors looking at my chart after surgery, "he's got numbers to die for." Actually the numbers mean I will probably live a long and healthy life.

For people who don't like the heat, this is not the best place to hang out as it gets quite hot here for many months of the year.

Living and teaching Earth friendly sustainable agricultural practices.

Every heat wave some people do die

Submitted by onetahiti on July 20, 2009 - 9:20pm.

Farmer Leaf,

I am so glad you have not been one of them. But others are negatively affected by heat and are not so lucky. :(

Too often people alienate possible supporters by insisting on a one-answer-fits-all solution. Just because something is safe for you does not mean it is safe for others.

There are many examples. Just off the top of my head: the move to wood stoves and heat (bad for people with lung problems), airbags (bad for short people), the ban on manufacture of incandescent bulbs (bad for susceptible people, often blue-eyed), shoulder straps on seatbelts (bad for short people since the "shoulder" part cuts right across the neck)....

I have had many arguments with the human factors engineering practitioners, who for years thought a design was just fine if it worked for the middle 90% of any measure. Thankfully they are finally starting to come around and notice that a large percentage of people do not make the middle 90% for at least one measure.

-- OneTahiti

There are other ways

Submitted by farmer leaf on July 20, 2009 - 11:19pm.

to deal with heat besides using conventional AC. It's not an either - or situation. We live in an era of high tech solutions as SFC pointed out in another post on this thread. For a lot of folks on here, the ability to think outside the current consensus "box of thought" seems beyond them. It's "if we don't have TVA and coal based electricity, we'll end up living in caves and freezing or starving to death. What rubbish!

And yes people do die in heat waves, hurricanes, ice storms, traffic accidents, plane crashes, pipe unloading mishaps, on the operating table, in their sleep, on the battlefield, deer hunting, snow shoveling, playing football, you name it, and people have died as a result of it. Death is the one certainty in life! All the more reason to make one's life actually matter.

On the matter of wood stoves. Newer models have catalytic converters and are relatively clean. A well designed and well insulated small house will minimize the pollution footprint. The alternatives - electric heat places the pollution source in one location such as Kingston Fossil that burns 14,000 tons of dirty coal a day! Natural gas - much cleaner but a dirty footprint getting it to a residential customer from the wellhead - Passive solar - wonderful, clean, non-polluting requires one's home to have been consciously built with solar design criteria foremost. Most homes are instead based on square footage and number of bathrooms.

If we as a species were willing to embrace change, rather than cling to a system that is wasteful, inefficient, polluting, and on top of everything else, costly, we might solve some of the problems facing the human race.

Living and teaching Earth friendly sustainable agricultural practices.

Catalytic converters are not enough

Submitted by onetahiti on July 21, 2009 - 5:04am.

I can tell you from personal experience that having a catalytic converter on a wood stove is not nearly enough to make its output "clean."

I tried having a brand-new catalytic wood stove in my other house, about 100 yards from this one. It was an expensive experiment. I still have that "clean" stove, unused now for many years. :(

-- OneTahiti

Combustion is rarely "clean"

Submitted by farmer leaf on July 21, 2009 - 9:02am.

and therefore the less we use it to promote our lifestyles, the better off we will be. For people with acute respiratory sensitivity, probably even trace amounts of PICs (products of incomplete combustion) will be irritating, if not downright hazardous.
The new stoves are a big improvement over the older "barrel or box stoves" where everything went up and out the flue. Well-seasoned wood is not only cleaner burning, but also gives off more BTUs per fuel unit. It is recommended to season wood for 24 months prior to burning.

Living and teaching Earth friendly sustainable agricultural practices.

Burning wood is not that good

Submitted by onetahiti on July 20, 2009 - 5:50pm.

As an asthmatic, I can tell you that wood smoke is not a clean byproduct. It is definitely a nasty air pollutant.

If you really want to go green, use something other than wood.

-- OneTahiti

It might feel like going

Submitted by harrimanite on July 20, 2009 - 7:29pm.

It might feel like going camping to you in the summer but what happens when the cold weather hits and you have to gather wood or chop wood to keep warm with a cook stove or fireplace. And there are no fresh fruits and veggies, only canned food you slaved to put back in the heat of summer. And hanging clothes on a line to dry results in them being frozen to the line. And the creek dries up in the winter time so you have to walk much farther to get your drinking water and wash water?

It might sound like it would be an adventure, but it would go old quick!
There's a reason "the olden days" are just that "olden days"

No reason we can't incorporate solar

Submitted by SFCharlie on July 20, 2009 - 8:03pm.

That's no reason we can't incorporate passive solar and solar hot water into our lives. The thermal mass (natural rock walls, tile floors, log homes) can be used to store cold from the clear night sky during the summer. Call it "stellar air conditioning". Readily available microprocessors allow us to automatically access sources of heat and cold; outside air, mean temperature deep ground or ground water, and basement cool, while exhausting heat stored in out attics. Vented roofs help and prevent ice dams from damaging shingles in winter. Conservation, just "cutting back", while not "flipping the switch" can help TVA avoid buying out of region power, something they support.

Thieves: a big reason not to put in too many improvements

Submitted by onetahiti on July 21, 2009 - 8:52pm.

See my previous post on the subject: (link...)

I would have gone solar here years ago and unhooked from TVA--not just passive solar as I am now--if it were not for the high probability that any improvements I add to my property will likely be stolen right away.

They never did find the thieves who stole my 3 big full gas tanks, enough for 3 years of cooking and heating. :(

Now I only install what I have some hope of defending. :(

-- OneTahiti

Today in 2009

Submitted by farmer leaf on July 20, 2009 - 11:47pm.

one can have fresh home grown vegetables in Winter such as turnips (and greens), kale, bok choy, carrots, broccoli, mustard greens, onions, potatoes, and more by using cold frames, hoop houses, root cellars and mulch.
Also if one places the clothes line in a southern exposure protected location, and washes on sunny days, clothes will not freeze on the line and they will dry.
Fruit can be sun dried on screens on hot summer days. We dry apples, figs, and pears this way, and there is no slaving involved.
Houses can be heated with passive solar designs that if the dwelling is well designed with a thermal mass heat sink, will retain heat throughout the night.
And lastly, going to the creek is not the only source of water as modern day rain collection systems and cisterns can catch and store abundant winter rainfall, and 12 volt pumps run from solar or wind power can put pressurized water at the sink tap or shower head.

Living and teaching Earth friendly sustainable agricultural practices.

I love my passive solar house

Submitted by onetahiti on July 21, 2009 - 5:09am.

Farmer Leaf,

You are so right about the "thermal mass heat sink." My house has one and it works very well.

-- OneTahiti

I disagree with your

Submitted by harrimanite on July 21, 2009 - 9:31am.

I disagree with your rebuttal to my post.

From experience... I KNOW that clothes will freeze on a line, regardless of where your clothesline is, if it gets cold enough!

I said "fresh fruits", You can't have fresh fruits around here in the winter time unless they are imported in. Apples (wrapped and packed in a cool place) and tomatoes (uprooted and hung up with green tomatoes on them) will keep for a while in a cellar but not through an entire year until the next season's crop arrives.

The comment I was answering had to do with the "adventure of camping" taking the place of today's dependency on electricity, not how to buid a solar house,water collection system, etc.

I wonder why you feel the need to critique just about every post on here. Doesn't it get lonely perched at the top of your intellectual mound?

When you make unsupportable claims

Submitted by farmer leaf on July 21, 2009 - 1:54pm.

that are erroneous, should we all just let that misinformation stand?
This site is intended to educate and enhance our knowledge. Your opinion about the dependency on electricity, I felt, was outdated and inaccurate. Perhaps you are not use to having your "wisdom" challenged in the circles you hang out in, and so you find rebuttal offensive.

Creeks are much more likely to dry up during the Summer and early Fall months, during the historical "dry season," and not during the Winter when rainfall is often quite adequate, and there is more runoff due to a lack of tree foliage and other growing vegetation.

(link...)

As far as clothes freezing on the line: - One must use some judgment about hanging out the laundry. That is why we have weather forecasts, so we can plan accordingly. You fight nature, she'll kick your butt every time. Nobody wanting to effectively and efficiently dry clothes in the Winter would hang them out in conditions that would freeze them on the line. One would pick a sunny day when the temperature would rise above 32 degrees.

And no, it doesn't get lonely as there are many visitors who come to the farm to learn and share ideas that improve the quality of life without negatively impacting the environment.

You did say "fresh fruit and veggies." Eating seasonally is much healthier and more sensible than trying to have fresh tomatoes in January.

Living and teaching Earth friendly sustainable agricultural practices.

And one may not have the

Submitted by harrimanite on July 21, 2009 - 4:52pm.

And one may not have the option to wait for a sunny day...DUH! That's when they get hung inside the house.
You were the one who answered my fresh fruit quote with a dried fruit option... again, in your haste to prove someone wrong, you failed to read closely enough.
Just because you haven't experienced something that someone else has, doesn't give you the right to call our postings erroneous... but then I guess we should be used to that by now.

You say, "This site is intended to educate and enhance our knowledge. Your opinion about the dependency on electricity, I felt, was outdated and inaccurate. Perhaps you are not use to having your "wisdom" challenged in the circles you hang out in, and so you find rebuttal offensive."

As usual, you use your warped sense of perception to take my comments out of context, so you could again insult and ridicule.
You know, in the whole scope of things, you (and I) and everyone else here on this earth are just specks. Your pompous attitude toward me and others won't really make your speck grow any larger than the rest (except maybe in your own eyes).

You do offer some good advice from time to time. It's a shame that you seem to feel the need to add rude, insulting, and demeaning comments mixed in with them.

Cause of derailment

Submitted by RICK on July 19, 2009 - 3:20pm.

More mismanagement?

Not a good sign,

Submitted by farmer leaf on July 19, 2009 - 3:25pm.

if they can't even get out the gate without a mishap.

Living and teaching Earth friendly sustainable agricultural practices.

Happens anytime you lay new track

Submitted by SFCharlie on July 19, 2009 - 3:51pm.

Let's just be glad no ash was spilled. Was it at the road crossing? New gravel, crossing, and slow trains don't mix well.

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