The History Behind Texas Coal Power

Front page feature in the Denton Record-Chronicle about the city’s relationship with coal and the important decisions it will face when its contract with coal runs out in 2018. According to sources, coal (in)dependence is a complicated equation.

ANDERSON — Straddling a dammed-up creek 20 miles east of College Station squats the Gibbons Creek Steam Electric Station, a massive coal-fired power plant supplying the city-owned utilities of Denton, Bryan, Garland and Greenville.

In the plant, a boiler is suspended from a steel beam like a glowing bee’s nest hanging from a giant tree limb. A conveyor feeds the boiler finely ground coal, fueling a fireball hotter than flowing lava. . . The control room on top of the plant is aglow with computer screens where workers in overalls press buttons to control feeders, fans and flow rates, and monitor the behavior of the fireball inside the boiler. Good behavior is determined by how much and what form of sulfur, carbon, mercury, nitrogen, particulates and other contaminates the burning coal produces.

“All this is just a giant chemistry experiment,” said Jan Horbaczewski. 

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Run Author Wins SPJ Mark of Excellence

Amelia Jaycen won the Society of Professional Journalists Region 8 Mark of Excellence Non-Fiction Magazine Article category, announced Mar. 30. The article “Mr. Universe. Lonely Hearts and Einstein in Love: The Personal Side of Science” is a feature-length profile of former New York Times science editor and now self-dubbed “cosmic correspondent” Dennis Overbye.

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Landfill Gas and Biogas Symposium

The Landfill Gas and Biogas Symposium March 16-19, 2015 in New Orleans will give biomass managers a chance to assess their system and look for ways to increase efficiency using successful case studies. “At a DTE Biomass Energy site consisting of (2) CAT 3520 engines, a series of incremental improvements cascaded on each other, leading to a drop in plant operating costs of over 35% from 2010 to 2013 and a plant on-stream rate improvement from 93.2% to 96.6%. What appear to be common sense applications of problem solving proved themselves to be game changers…”

Find out more about the event–>

At Exxon, not a lot of thanks-giving after OPEC’s Nov. 27 meeting

End-of-year Company Update

Amelia Jaycen

Dec. 2, 2014 — The world’s largest publicly traded energy company is weathering the storm of falling oil prices with a show of healthy profits, but the oil giant may not be exempt from facing further price drops that could mean curbing investments in 2015.

Over the course of 2014 ExxonMobil led explosive growth in production in a booming energy market, a market which today suffers from a glut of supply that has continued to push the price of oil down since June — to $70 a barrel Friday for a four-year low.

The company’s stock dropped a whopping 4% on Friday after OPEC did not to agree to reduce oil production, pushing down oil prices in order to push out unwanted competition — a move analysts are calling “commodity gamesmanship” aimed at targeting U.S. shale producers.

East-West Meets Far North

A view of Kirkenes, June 2014. Top: Kirkenes harbor. (Photos: Amelia Jaycen)

I lived in Kirkenes, Norway for five weeks this summer, and I could not put into words what it mean or how it felt. Thanks to Bittner’s op-ed, I can share with you a little about why it shook me, why I’m in love with some far-away thing, why I was scared and elated, at the top of the world and the depths of me, why I couldn’t sleep, why I did some of the best reporting and deepest loving of my life there. Why I’ll never be the same, why no one can quite “get” that.

I’ll keep trying to tell it when i’m a better reporter. But for now, see the New York Times editorial on my home away from home…

IPCC Climate Change Report is a Strong Case for Change, and Fast

Opening Ceremony of the Fortieth Session of the IPCC, Copenhagen, Denmark, 27 October 2014. (Photo with permission, courtesy IPCC.)

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Nov. 2 issued its Synthesis Report – a combination three IPCC Working Group reports, which IPCC says are “the most comprehensive assessment of climate change ever undertaken.”

The report is the joint effort of 800 lead authors, almost 1,000 more supporting authors and a combination of 30,000 scientific papers. The report “distills and integrates the findings” and provides information critically important for policymakers, IPCC says.

On Writing: Art of Darkness

This incredible, short piece by Pico Iyer captures some of the heavy psychological burdens of creativity. Indeed, many of my literary colleagues talk about the writer’s “pain cave,” while a theme in my young writer’s life sang of a “curse of consciousness.” Neither is a very far cry from Pico’s “Art of Darkness”:

“To what extent is the price of immortality humanity, as you could put it? Must the revolutionary artist ignore — even flout — the basic laws of decency that govern our world in order to transform that world? “Perfection of the life, or of the work,” as Yeats had it. “And if it take the second,” he went on, the intellect of man “must refuse a heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.” It was an ancient question even then..”

Continue Reading Pico Iyer’s “Art of Darkness” at The New York Times–>

Iyer’s forthcoming Art of Stillness book will be the second on the TED Books imprint, a collaboration between TED conferences and Simon & Schuster.

Read more about Iyer/TED Books–>

UNT library opens creative “Factory” with 3-D printing, scanning, robotics, Google Glass

“The Factory has eight printers for standard printing needs and a large format printer; a Raspberry Pi, a computer no larger than a credit card that plugs into a television and keyboard and can be used for spreadsheets, word processing, gaming and playing high-definition video; Arduino, a tool used to create computers that take input from a variety of switches or sensors and control lights, motors and other physical outputs; cameras and photographic equipment; and Google Glass, an optical device that can be used to record videos and photographs from a first person perspective…”

Continue Reading –>

Kick-Off Event, Monday, 27 Oct. 2014 –>

 More about The Factory –>

Norway, the Slow Way

From the Web: An excellent travel story about Norway from The New York Times with a final destination in Kirkenes, a tiny border-town north of the Arctic Circle, where I spent five weeks this summer reporting on Norwegian-Russian border issues and Arctic science. Beautiful Norway.

An update on Ebola

Ebola coming to America has been called a “situation,” a “crisis” and a “scare,” among other things. Here’s a 4-minute clip from NPR on the chances of the virus becoming airborne or mutating.

Vexed by Earthquakes, Texas Calls in a Scientist

David Craig Pearson, the Texas Railroad Commission’s new seismologist, is giving serious attention to the state’s earthquakes. Friday, Sept. 26, 2014, in Austin. (Marie D. De Jesus / Houston Chronicle )

“Surely the seismologist – this man of science, highly educated and blessed with good ol’ boy roots in West Texas – must know what he’s getting himself into. The Texas oil boom is the envy of the nation, a source of strength in uncertain geopolitical times. Smart people are moving in from the coasts. Investors are getting rich. Even a high school dropout can make decent money behind the wheel of a truck. Life is good…”

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James Geurts’ Work at Zhulong Isn’t Merely Large in Scale, It’s Global

At first glance, the work of James Geurts may not be what you expect to see at Zhulong Gallery. The relatively new exhibition space calls itself “the new light on Dragon street.” It differentiates itself from most of the other galleries by outwardly embracing new media, and work that interacts with contemporary technology. Saturday’s launch of Re-Surveying: Measuring Site utilized landscape art, photography, and public works.

Geurts is based in both Melbourne and London. Geurts’ vision is related to the shape of the earth itself, while he also ties in complexities of the human understanding of time and space. His presence in Dallas offers a different perspective on new media than the one to which we’ve been accustomed.

Geurts resuscitates anachronistic technologies that seem a far cry from new media–until you take another look.

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A guide to Dallas performance art for the uninitiated

(Photo: Andi Harman)

A woman is lying on the floor of an 8th St loft space in Oak Cliff like a sacrifice, seemingly possessed. Streams of thick white light shine from a lamp straight down into her open throat and then refract out the other end in strings of color. Her eyelids are still, wrists limp against the floor. Her knees are bent, spread just enough to allow a rainbow to escape from between her legs and spiderweb into the room. Not touching her is impossible—the room can barely be entered without climbing over or under the colored strings attached to the walls. Curious figures tip-toe by this quiet sensuality, some trying not to touch anything, others unaffected by the fact that the strings are literally connected to her most private region. Once, at another show, a guy tried to pull the copper piece tied to the strings from inside her as she performed. She wasn’t sure if it was ultimate art or ultimate trauma. Her boyfriend was furious.

“People get very offended with being confronted with nudity, with the human body. They don’t like being exposed to it or forced to confront it. They consider it exhibitionism,” Houston artist Julia Claire says. “For me it’s a way of dealing with relationships with people; with having to be close to them.”

Claire’s installation in the upstairs Spotplus gallery was the climax of a night of performance art, and like many of the other acts, hers left a bunch of curious onlookers trying to figure out what they were “supposed” to feel.

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Digital Frontiers 2014 brings digital scholarship to North Texas

“Digital Frontiers is a project to explore innovation and collaboration across disciplinary boundaries in the arena of public humanities and cultural memory.”

The annual conference is produced by the Digital Scholarship Co-Operative at the University of North Texas. For more info, see the schedule. http://digital-frontiers.org/conference/2014/sessions

Quantum Diaries blogs narrative physics

Supported by InterAction, a promoter of cross-border particle-physics cooperation, the blog site is “not just about physics; it’s about being a physicist.”

A french birthday party and update on the Higgs boson, sterile neutrinos, and a physicist and a historian walking into a coffee shop are all good finds in the pages of Quantum Diaries.

Quantum Diaries, sounds cheesy I know, but don’t judge too quickly – there’s meat: “This project is not just about physics; it’s about being a physicist.” The site is a conglomeration, a revolving panel of about 100 bloggers writing narrative diaries about their “families, hobbies and interests, as well as their latest research findings and challenges that face them in their labs.”

It’s hard not to find something of interest from a global network of particle physicists writing topics from “the Higgs versus Descartes” to “the fifth dimension that Einstein missed.”

 

Masters of the Universe and other characters from the heart of Texas in July

In blistering Texas summer heat, the Mayborn Tribe gathers each summer in north Texas to talk about the craft, learn from each other and soak up the spirit of nonfiction writing.

This year’s event was centered around Narratives on the Cutting Edge, Writing about Science, Technology, Medicine and Innovation. Last year’s event dealt with digging into the past to bring historical narratives to life.
Both were rich themes with space to explore, share insight and dig into the down-and-dirty of nonfiction. In the middle of three days of mayhem, there’s a suit-and-tie (or boots and jeans, depending on how Texan you are) Literary Lights Dinner and Mayborn awards program, just a few ticks from rivaling the Pulitzers.

Permafrost thaw cracks urban infrastructure, students dig in

Satellite image of the city of Norilsk, Russia.

Students from Russia, U.S., Norway, Germany, Italy, China and U.K. arrived this week in Norilsk, Russia where they will spend two weeks in a field school to assess the effects of permafrost thaw on Russian urban infrastructure.

The student researchers will conduct permafrost research in the field as well as meet with representatives of the Norilsk-Nickel mining company and of local production plants and geological, planning, social and migration services to form a science-based dialogue about problems and solutions.

Continue Reading–>

“You can’t breathe in air with 7000 micrograms of sulfur dioxide.”

The nickel smelting plant in Nikel, Russia located just over the Norwegian border produces pollution that has been a problem for northern Norwegians for decades and is nearly six times the amount of pollution produced in all of Norway. (Photo: Amelia Jaycen)

Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology on Tuesday told representatives of “MMC” Norilsk Nickel of the planned decommissioning some of Nikel plant rundown facilities by 2016 and reorganization of metallurgical production at the Monchegorsk plant, which must be upgraded and modernized, the ministry said in a press release yesterday. Monchegorsk is owned by the same company and located some two-hour drive south of Murmansk on the Kola Peninsula.

The program involves modernization and renovation of all stages of processing and consolidation of smelting and refining capacity to a more modern venue including technological upgrading and expansion of refinery at Monchegorsk during 2016-2017. Capital investments in the program total more than 50 billion rubles, the release says.

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Studying Arctic ice from cradle to grave

Researchers collect an ice core to measure its temperature and salinity near “RV Lance” during the N-ICE test cruise in February 2014. (Photo: Paul Dodd/Norwegian Polar Institute)

When spring 2015 approaches, sun spilling the landscape will find a group of scientists adrift at sea on “RV Lance” – once a top-of-the-line seal hunting boat, now turned research vessel.

On board the ship, an international collection of researchers will watch up-close as the arctic wakes, with instruments tuned not only to wildlife but to the most important creature of them all – the sea ice.

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Climate change study heats up Arctic soil

Predictions for a global temperature increase within the next 100 years range anywhere from 2 to 10°C. In this warmer future, how will the planet maintain its delicate relationship with the atmosphere? What are the implications for agriculture on which humans depend for survival?

Researchers at the Bioforsk complex in the Pasvik valley just completed installation of a system to test this temperature flux and show what the effects might be on food production for populations in the high north and measure changes in greenhouse gas emissions.

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