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RE: [cdn-nucl-l] CANDU Cleaner Than Hydro
Thanks for the link Randal,
However, I find that the accompanying diagram, "Hydropower Polluters," is
not very useful -- one could even say its misleading.
The map only provides surface areas of dammed waters, in millions of
hectares.
It says *nothing* about the relative importance of each hectare, in terms of
GHG production, at various latitudes.
While Canada, at 6.5 Mha, is the second largest in the world, according to
the map, it probably counts for much less than the 3.98 Mha of Brazil or the
4.57 Mha of India, because the amount of vegetation submerged by water in
subarctic regions like James Bay is a tiny fraction of the vegetation in the
same hectare in the tropics or temperate zones.
I find it odd too that the map completely omits any figures for a few
countries with some of the largest hydro projects in the world (including
the largest of them all, Itaipu), like Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, as
well as some countries in equatorial Africa.
One reason we have so little vegetation in the James Bay area is because a
few thousand years ago the entire region was scraped clean of all topsoil by
advancing glaciers.
When you fly over the land, you can clearly see the parallel scrape marks in
the rock, much of which is still exposed even today.
If we are going to blame any hydro reservoirs in Canada for large quantities
of GHG production, we should point the finger at those in coastal BC, which
avoided the last glaciation.
Curiously though, I have never heard David Suzuki complain about hydro power
in BC. Rather, he prefers to misinform the public about nuclear power (sigh,
what else is new ??).
Jaro Franta, P.Eng.
Tel.: (514) 875-3444
Montréal, Québec
frantaj@aecl.ca
web master, CNS Québec branch:
http://www.cns-snc.ca/branches/quebec/quebec.html
<><><><><><><><><><><>
-----Original Message-----
From: cdn-nucl-l-admin@mailman1.cis.McMaster.CA
[mailto:cdn-nucl-l-admin@mailman1.cis.McMaster.CA]On Behalf Of Randal
Leavitt
Sent: Friday, February 25, 2005 10:31 PM
To: nuclear
Subject: [cdn-nucl-l] CANDU Cleaner Than Hydro
New Scientist, Duncan Graham-Rowe, 26 Feb 2005
http://grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=4412
In effect man-made reservoirs convert carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
into methane. This is significant because methane's effect on global
warming is 21 times stronger than carbon dioxide's.
And the diagram is interesting - Canada is worse than China for this
kind of pollution.
--
================================================
Randal Leavitt gnupg public key: bbbad04d
Registered User 267646 at http://counter.li.org/
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