What’s riding the rails in your hometown? A few hobos maybe, but also potentially deadly chemicals rumble through America’s communities daily. My hometown paper, The Galesburg Register-Mail, printed a series of articles on the dangers nearly every train brings to a community. And in Galesburg, IL, this is particularly important: approximately 1,000 cars travel through the city daily on two major railroads that cross town, the Burlington Northern and the Santa Fe, now known as BNSF, since the two merged.

How dangerous are some of those cars? Well, they carry some nasty stuff:

• Anhydrous Ammonia: This colorless gas may be fatal if inhaled, ingested or absorbed through the skin. It could explode if exposed to heat, or burn, but it doesn’t ignite readily.
• Chlorine: It, too, can be fatal if inhaled or absorbed through the skin. If a spill occurs during the daytime, people within at 1.5 mile radius must be evacuated; at night, more that 4.5 miles need to be evacuated.
• Diesel Fuel: Yep, it’s dangerous too: explosive when vapors are mixed with air, and it can burn eyes and skin.
• Hydrochloric Acid: If a container is heated or contaminated with water, an explosion could occur. Inhalation of vapors can kill, cause burns or severe injury.
• Methanol: Nasty stuff that’s flammable and explosive. Again, inhalation, ingestion or absorption by the skin can be fatal.
• Sodium Chlorate: Same thing: possibly fatal if inhaled or ingested. It can accelerate burning if involved with a fire, or it can explode.
• Sodium Hydroxide: It’s explosive but will not flame. The usual warnings about inhalation, ingestion or being absorbed by the skin.
• Sulfuric Acid: It, too, is explosive, and will burn (but not ignite). It can inflict severe burns on the skin, and is deadly to inhale or ingest.
• Uranium: The article doesn’t cover uranium, but it too is being carried by railroads around the world in various forms, from the newly mined to spent rods. Always dangerous, I just wanted to add it to the mix.

Any of these chemicals could, if spilled during a derailment, spread a fatal cloud over a community. The chance of that happening, according to the article, is about the same as winning the lottery. A spokesman for BNSF railway, Steve Forsberg, is quoted as saying that "less than three-tenths of 1 percent of all rail shipments are materials that could be turned into a toxic cloud."

Do railroads have to carry these materials? Yes, they are required by federal law to move them by the federal common carrier obligation. Would they rather not? Yes, the article says: it’s a "bet the business" public service. But then, the rails are safer than transportation by truck, where the accident rate is many times more common.

Research is underway to make tank cars more reliable in case of an accident, such as staying upright and intact in case of derailment. But don’t expect any progress soon as research has been delayed until the first of the year.

The solution, of course, is to "go green" by producing safer chemicals, but that appears a long way off. Possibly the most dangerous chemicals are chlorine, which is still used to disinfect water, and anhydrous ammonia, a fertilizer base.

Accidents have occurred and will continue to do so. One of the scarier happened a short time ago when a tank car filled with chlorine rolled 20 miles through Las Vegas, past hotels and resorts on the Strip until it was safely stopped. I recall a tank car explosion in Kingman, AZ, back in the 70s that resulted in fatalities. According to Patricia Abbatte, executive director of Citizens for Rail Safety, "The doomsday scenario is that one tank car of chlorine could kill up to 100,000 people in 30 minutes."

Until something better comes along, your friendly railroad will whistle it’s way through your community, past schools and homes carrying a deadly cargo.

"There’s no free lunch" is an old axiom that surfaces everytime I think something for nothing is coming my way. This time it’s ethanol, and you’re probably already aware that less corn is going to your table because more of it is going to fuel. So we’re paying for cleaner air everytime we buy products made from corn.

Articles are showing up more and more by writers complaining about rising food costs not only in the US, but in other areas of the world. So here’s an old dude’s perspective.

Education: A Zillion Uses for Corn

Also on GO:

The Green Life Guide: Ethanol

Red, Green and Blue: A Case for Ethanol Skepticism

Red, Green and Blue: Ethanol: Fuel of the Future, or Ponzi Scheme?

4 Ways to "Cash In" on Ethanol

Climate Change, Energy Security and CAFE: With E85, the Country has a Better Mousetrap

US Drunk on Ethanol Hysteria

If a person pays attention, they can turn common situations into a positive energy saving message. That’s what today’s guest does very well with an interesting and informative website called Energy Boomer.

He tells the story of a bat that helped him find areas that would leak heat, and the story of that grasshopper. He shares his views on ethanol and electric automobiles, but you may not agree completely on his choice of a fuel to power electric generating stations.

You’ll find interesting ways to save energy, at home and at work, and also some tips on saving energy if you work at home. His latest post concerns wind energy, saying wind is a form of solar power. Well, enough of this: listen in and enjoy.

I couldn’t pass this one up. Reuben Miller sent this to me from his Stumble site and it just seemed like too good an idea to pass up.

Imagine, driving, or riding, or whatever your shopping cart to the grocery store, detach the bike and wheel the cart into the store. Once at the checkout, no need for bags: just load the groceries into the cart, attach it to your bike and voila, a bagless shopping trip.

Of course, if you live in anything but a ground floor apartment it may not work so well, unless, of course, your building has an elevator. In any case, this just may have market potential.

Reuben Miller

Image source: Idealist

The people whose land we occupied so many years ago have not been given their fair share of our prosperity. Right now, there are more than 10,000 Native American households in Arizona that have no access to electricity. Shamefully, that’s 7% of all Native American households without electricity in America.

Arizona is making an effort to bring electricty to it’s Native American residents through a new program called the Tribal Rural Electrification Program (in PDF). Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano announced the new initiative Wednesday, saying the first phase will bring solar power to at least 100 reservation homes by the end of the year.

The Arizona Department of Commerce Energy Office will run the program, with the help of Arizona State University Polytechnic Campus’ Photovoltaic Testing Laboratory. Arizona utilities and solar power companies will also partner in the initiative.

What are other states doing?

Just recently I received an email from a senior, Mr. John Lane, who’s become very interested in a group called “PETH,” but he failed to say what it was all about. So, being the curious one, I called him and had the most “interesting” conversation. Look out, PETA — here comes the People for the Ethical Treatment of Hops.

The podcast is here.

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

The people whose land we occupied so many years ago have not been given their fair share of our prosperity. Right now, there are more than 10,000 Native American households in Arizona that have no access to electricity. Shamefully, that’s 7% of all Native American households without electricity in America.  Do the math.

Arizona is making an effort to bring electricty to it’s Native American residents through a new program called the Tribal Rural Electrification Program. Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano announced the new initiative Wednesday, saying the first phase will bring solar power to at least 100 reservation homes by the end of the year.
It’s not a lot, but it’s certainly a beginning.

The Arizona Department of Commerce Energy Office will run the program, with the help of Arizona State University Polytechnic Campus’ Photovoltaic Testing Laboratory. Arizona utilities and solar power companies will also partner in the initiative.

What are other states doing?

Source:  The Arizona Business Journal

She’s the mother of eight, the grandmother of 15 and a great-grandmother to seven, she enjoys crossword and jigsaw puzzles, and quilting. Marjorie lives in Nicholson Township, Pennsylvania and, like many people enjoys an occasional walk along the road in her rural area. There’s nothing unusual about that, but Marjorie makes that walk a study in environmental consciousness.

That’s Marjorie on the right, out on the road with her trash bag and a long, jaw-like grab stick to help in snagging discarded objects. And who wouldn’t like to be greeted with that smile? Marjorie’s story was told in the Scranton, PA Times-Tribune, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to talk with her.

Back on August 2, 2007, I did a podcast featuring three women — two Chileans and a Canadian — who had run afoul of the law in their respective countries. The Canadian is Betty Krawczyk, and I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing her by phone from her prison cell.

She’s intelligent, charming, and an outspoken proponent for environmental and civil rights issues. Our interview touches on Betty’s evaluation of the Canadian court system, her first eyewitness account of discrimination and cruelty, and the events that led to leaving her native Louisiana with a husband and six children to settle in Canada.

Links:

Betty’s Early Edition

Books of Betty K.

The Raging Grannies, pursuers of activist causes since 1986 are still going strong. From humble beginnings as a peace group in Canada, to The Today Show, magazine articles, newspaper and tv coverage, the grannies have a rich history. They’ve been arrested, investigated, cheered and jeered, but still they go out and rage for change.

Join me in a look at the history and accomplishments of this group of seniors who are as much at home making brownies for their grandchildren as they are in front of a military recruiters office, trying to dissuade young men and women from joining the military. Shrinking violets they aren’t, and that makes their story even more interesting.