December 2011 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

Re: [Utah-astronomy] Alton Mine and What Not
by stormcrow60＠xmission.com 08 Dec '11

08 Dec '11

Don said: One more thing, the greatest global warming gas of all which swamps the others by several orders of magnitude is water vapor. Warm air hold more water vapor than cold air and water holds less CO2 when warm than when cold. So as the earth warms from natural causes (or manmade causes) there is a multiplier effect as the oceans expel CO2 and more water evaporates into the atmosphere. Don, What you are saying is all true. But why make it worse? What is the point? If we had been working for the last 30 years away from fossil fuels we would not have to worry about interrupting our energy sources. When I was growing up in So. Cal. and I was 12 years old, I was talking to my brother-in-law, who's dad worked for So. Cal. Edison (Largest state energy utility). He was working on a solar project. My bro-in-law said it would take 25 years to bring viable solar power to our nation. So what if it would take 25 years. And, what did Edison do during the late 70's and early 80's? They curtailed back their solar projects immensely. Now, if we would have been working for all those years toward green energy and energy independence, we would have almost entriely moved away from fossil fuels right now. This nonsense of constantly saying that it is too expensive, or it will interrupt our energy grid will be our ultimate folly. Fracking projects that poison our water and burning fossil fuels that kill us with respiratory illnesses... contaminating our food sources with mercury and other toxic wastes... endless wars in foreign lands for oil... now these things to me are far too expensive. And fossil fuels will not last forever. Someday soon, the chickens will come home to roost. Oh how we will wish we would have been more prudent and wise in our energy production and consumption. Jon

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Sorry About the Multiple Posts Regarding Fracking
by stormcrow60＠xmission.com 08 Dec '11

08 Dec '11

Sorry Folks, Everytime I tried to send my email to the list, I was receiving "send" errors. Little did I know they would all eventually post. My apologies. Jon

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ALCON in the Reflector
by Steve Fisher 08 Dec '11

08 Dec '11

Congratulations are again in order to Lowell Lyon and Robert Taylor for the article in the December 2011 edition of The Reflector from The Astronomical League. I just received it in today's mail and read it cover to cover. One more tip of the hat to all that made ALCON 2011 a huge sucess. Now if the Astronomy League would just call their production "Refractor". Steve

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Utah-Astronomy Digest, Vol 106, Issue 78
by stormcrow60＠xmission.com 08 Dec '11

08 Dec '11

Hi Folks, After my initial response to this thread, I laid low, not wanting to contribute to the fact that some are leaving this list. But, I have to respond to Don's statements. Don, I don't know where you get your information, but to say natural gas has no pollutants is absurd. Natural gas is primarily made of methane, which, as a global warming pollutant, is 20x worse than carbon dioxide. There are several reasons, based on fact that make the effort to "frack" unjustifiable. One, vast amounts of water need to be used. We can not afford to waste our most precious resource on this planet for dirty fuels. Two, having methane, as opposed to fracking fluid in your drinking water is not anymore desirable. Would you drink it? Three, just because "fracking fluid" has not leaked into water tables now, does not mean it will not happen in the future. How many times have we heard the oil companies say oil spills can not happen and they would bear all the cleanup responsibilities? False and false. Besides, I would dispute the thought that fracking fluids have not contaminated water tables. Four, fracking has been proven to cause earthquakes, although they are small. But whats happens in the future? Five, huge federal subsidies are needed to make any fracking projects economically viable, as all fossil fuel is subsidized. If Americans really paid the true cost of producing fossil fuels, we would be paying $5/liter. Six, if these subsidies were put into green technology, we would not need to "frack". Seven, saying the Sierra Club is impartial is true. But, not having billions of dollars at stake, I tend to believe they are being more open and honest regarding their stance on fracking than the fossil fuel industry. Eight, obviously, fossil fuel industries are not impartial either. To quote a line in a TOOL song.... They "Lie, cheat and steal." We can go on and on as to why fracking is not a good energy policy. I am sure I will never convince you of my beliefs in the realm of fracking, the environment and political philosophies, but there is no way I could let your last statements go without a response. My Three Cents, Jon The situation I mentioned is just reinjection of water from one producing formation into another depleted formation. A very routine process. However, I need to respond to some of the things you may have heard about fracking. 1. The technology is not new and is well understood. The first fracs were done in the late 40's and early 50's. During the 1980's several thousand fracs were performed and during the 1990's and up to the present day several hundred thousand wells have been fracked. 2. During this whole period there is not one documented case of frac fluid getting into a water aquifer. Some of the reasons for this are that the formations fracked are almost always deeper than 5,000 feet, well below most fresh water aquifers, and government agencies require that the fresh water zones, which are typically 1500 feet or shallower, be sealed off by cementing surface casing through them. Frac fluids are not flammable and some fracs consist only of fresh water and sand. Others contain cross-linked gels and other chemicals. 3. There are cases of methane getting into drinking water. This can be caused by not having proper integrity in the surface casing and a leak developing in the production casing and gas leaking into the aquifer but this has nothing to do with the frac. Another common cause of methane in drinking water is caused by culinary water wells that are drilled in areas of shallow coals. After producing gas free water for a period the coals "dewater" and produce methane which gets into the water supply. This is a very common occurrence particularly in areas like Wyoming, Utah, Pennsylvania and West Virginia which have shallow coals associated with fresh water aquifers. 4. The frac basically enhances the producibility of gas from the existing gas reservoir. 5. Much of the hysteria about fracking has been promoted by organizations like the Sierra Club which opposes the drilling of ANY new wells ANYWHERE in the U. S. They can hardly be objective. 6. Natural gas contains no pollutants and is far preferable to coal or oil from any environmental viewpoint. It also has the smallest production footprint. The United States has sufficient natural gas resources to become energy independent and I believe it is the height of folly not to develop them. Don Quoting utah-astronomy-request(a)mailman.xmission.com: > Send Utah-Astronomy mailing list submissions to > utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > utah-astronomy-request(a)mailman.xmission.com > > You can reach the person managing the list at > utah-astronomy-owner(a)mailman.xmission.com > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Utah-Astronomy digest..." >

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Utah-Astronomy Digest, Vol 106, Issue 78
by stormcrow60＠xmission.com 08 Dec '11

08 Dec '11

Hi Folks, After my initial response to this thread, I laid low, not wanting to contribute to the fact that some are leaving this list. But, I have to respond to Don's statements. Don, I don't know where you get your information, but to say natural gas has no pollutants is absurd. Natural gas is primarily made of methane, which, as a global warming pollutant, is 20x worse than carbon dioxide. There are several reasons, based on fact that make the effort to "frack" unjustifiable. One, vast amounts of water need to be used. We can not afford to waste our most precious resource on this planet for dirty fuels. Two, having methane, as opposed to fracking fluid in your drinking water is not anymore desirable. Would you drink it? Three, just because "fracking fluid" has not leaked into water tables now, does not mean it will not happen in the future. How many times have we heard the oil companies say oil spills can not happen and they would bear all the cleanup responsibilities? False and false. Besides, I would dispute the thought that fracking fluids have not contaminated water tables. Four, fracking has been proven to cause earthquakes, although they are small. But whats happens in the future? Five, huge federal subsidies are needed to make any fracking projects economically viable, as all fossil fuel is subsidized. If Americans really paid the true cost of producing fossil fuels, we would be paying $5/liter. Six, if these subsidies were put into green technology, we would not need to "frack". Seven, saying the Sierra Club is impartial is true. But, not having billions of dollars at stake, I tend to believe they are being more open and honest regarding their stance on fracking than the fossil fuel industry. Eight, obviously, fossil fuel industries are not impartial either. To quote a line in a TOOL song.... They "Lie, cheat and steal." We can go on and on as to why fracking is not a good energy policy. I am sure I will never convince you of my beliefs in the realm of fracking, the environment and political philosophies, but there is no way I could let your last statements go without a response. My Three Cents, Jon The situation I mentioned is just reinjection of water from one producing formation into another depleted formation. A very routine process. However, I need to respond to some of the things you may have heard about fracking. 1. The technology is not new and is well understood. The first fracs were done in the late 40's and early 50's. During the 1980's several thousand fracs were performed and during the 1990's and up to the present day several hundred thousand wells have been fracked. 2. During this whole period there is not one documented case of frac fluid getting into a water aquifer. Some of the reasons for this are that the formations fracked are almost always deeper than 5,000 feet, well below most fresh water aquifers, and government agencies require that the fresh water zones, which are typically 1500 feet or shallower, be sealed off by cementing surface casing through them. Frac fluids are not flammable and some fracs consist only of fresh water and sand. Others contain cross-linked gels and other chemicals. 3. There are cases of methane getting into drinking water. This can be caused by not having proper integrity in the surface casing and a leak developing in the production casing and gas leaking into the aquifer but this has nothing to do with the frac. Another common cause of methane in drinking water is caused by culinary water wells that are drilled in areas of shallow coals. After producing gas free water for a period the coals "dewater" and produce methane which gets into the water supply. This is a very common occurrence particularly in areas like Wyoming, Utah, Pennsylvania and West Virginia which have shallow coals associated with fresh water aquifers. 4. The frac basically enhances the producibility of gas from the existing gas reservoir. 5. Much of the hysteria about fracking has been promoted by organizations like the Sierra Club which opposes the drilling of ANY new wells ANYWHERE in the U. S. They can hardly be objective. 6. Natural gas contains no pollutants and is far preferable to coal or oil from any environmental viewpoint. It also has the smallest production footprint. The United States has sufficient natural gas resources to become energy independent and I believe it is the height of folly not to develop them. Don Quoting utah-astronomy-request(a)mailman.xmission.com: > Send Utah-Astronomy mailing list submissions to > utah-astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > utah-astronomy-request(a)mailman.xmission.com > > You can reach the person managing the list at > utah-astronomy-owner(a)mailman.xmission.com > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Utah-Astronomy digest..." >

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Alton Mine, GSENM & BLM
by Jerry Foote 08 Dec '11

08 Dec '11

After reading all of the rhetoric that has been posted on this list concering these topics, I thought that it is time to hear from someone that lives in the immediate area and has first hand knowledge on the topics. My wife & I moved to Kanab, Kane County, less that a week after the designation of 75% of Kane County as the Grand Staircase Ecalante National Monument (GSENM). There was considerable opposition to this designation in this community. As others have posted, the designation was done in a very underhanded way by Clinton. But what does this designation actually mean for those of us living here: 1. Over 900 roads on this area were closed to motorized traffic. This includes ranchers that can't access their grazing allotments. The only way that the interior of this area can be seen is either on horse or on foot. Of course this is a desert so travel in the interior of the Monument means carrying the necessary water for the trip. Humans need at least a gallon of water per day in the summer heat so a 4 day back packing trip means that you need to carry about 28 pounds of water for the trip. Not counting what your horse needs. In 4 days you can't even reach the central areas of the Monument. 2. There has been many lawsuits over these road closures, mostly brought on by non-local groups. Luckily, recently, the 10th District Court of Appeals has ruled that these outside parties do not have standing and has dismissed their claims. This ruling has now allowed Kane County to file quiet title claim on these 900 roads that have been closed for 12 years. The action will not come anytime soon but at least they are moving ahead. 3. As some of you might know, The US government has a program called PILT. PILT stands for Payment In Lieu of Taxes. It is the recognition that local government does not receive property taxes on land controlled or owned by the Federal Government. Kane County normally receives. In 2010 Kane County received $997,681 for the 2,301,878 acres of federally controlled land in the county( 85% of the county land). That amounts to about $0.43/acre. I don't know about the rest of you but for my lot I pay about $550/acre in taxes. The Fed's are getting a good deal. Now on top of that great deal the County has been told that PILT payments will probably not be paid this year. The deficit will be made up by the local residents as an increase in their property taxes. So how can the County generate revenue? We are primarily a tourist county with a considerable amount of our lively-hood coming from tourist activities including lodging, food and fuel. With the Monument closed to motorized traffic tour groups are out of business, motels don't fill with people that want to see the Monument and fuel isn't bought. So what does this have to do with The Alton Mine? The mine will be a source of both jobs and tax revenue. The light pollution will be negligible, Travel in the area, check the lay of the land. There are is a high mountain with trees between Bryce and Alton. The light dome that will come from the Alton Mine is very minor and will probably be much less that that from the other local communities. The coal is destined for the Delta power plant. All modern power plants don't just serve communities, they pump power into the national grid which we ALL draw from. The same is true for the Delta plant. Additional perspective: Most recently the Department of the Interior under Salazar has closed the Arizona Strip area (that portion of Arizona that lies north of the Colorado River) to mining for a three year period to study the environmental impacts of mining. Well this area has the richest US supply of Uranium. At the end of the three year period a decision will be made by Interior as to whether to continue the closure for another 30 years. Read that as no jobs or economic income. If it remains closed then we will need to rely of foreign sources of Uranium to fuel the necessary nuclear power plants. Because yes, nuclear power will become the best alternative between other sources of energy. Coal runs out and we can all agree that it is dirty and environmentally bad. Wind and Solar won't make it for obvious reasons ( economics, KWH/acre, etc.). So lets put these two facts together: No coal mining and no Uranium mining. So our dependance on foreign oil for energy just increased. I know we just need to conserve. That is a great thing for all of you to do but I'm still going to run my computer, light my house, cook my meals and enjoy my way of life. The consumption of energy has brought about the greatest industrialized nation with the highest productivity in the world. Do we need to be highly productive, I believe we do. Now about the BLM. You really need to live under the control of the local BLM offices to see the underhanded tricks they use to maintain their control of our land. An example: There are a number of roads on BLM land that have recently had "Administrative" signs added to them. What this means no one knows and the local Kanab Field Office will not say. These roads have been open to all traffic for better that 50 years but now they have these signs. The suspicion of the locals is that anyone not knowledgeable of these roads will come across this sign and not travel the road. Presto after a few years the BLM will close the road unilaterally saying" the road is not used so we will close it". Is this what will happen? Only time will tell. The process that the BLM uses to handle the transportation plan on Public Lands is capricious. If you go the their office and ask questions about access to areas the answer is always that it is closed. When one asks to see the document that closed an area they can't produce it. Am I biased? Yes I am. I live here and enjoy this land. Do I ride my ATV anywhere I like? NO. I'm a responsible rider as are all others I ride with. I do take considerable issue with people outside of the area trying to make rules they know nothing about and are ignorant of the true facts. -- Jerry Foote ScopeCaft, Inc. www.scopecraft.com

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Lunar Eclipse Saturday
by jcarman6＠q.com 08 Dec '11

08 Dec '11

For those of you planning to stay up late or get up early to see the lunar eclipse, perhaps you should take a look at the predicition of visibility at your location. Clouds excepted. http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/OH/OH2011.html#LE2011Dec10T

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OT: Grand Stair Case
by erikhansen＠thebluezone.net 07 Dec '11

07 Dec '11

It has been "asserted" Grand Stair Case has hurt local economies. Food for thought, perhaps we should think twice before destroying a 5 Billion per year tourism industry. With all due respect Jerry, exactly what "tourists" destinations were closed? http://headwaterseconomics.org/apps-public/national-monuments/2011-03/pdf/e… People who wonder what right Clinton had, that would be the 1906 Antiquities Act, it requires no permission or discussion with state officials. Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon, and Death Valley were created in the same way. Erik

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Alton Mine Update
by erikhansen＠thebluezone.net 07 Dec '11

07 Dec '11

Public Hearing at SLC Library on Wednesday Dec 7th. Scientific groups are disputing the BLM's environmental impact assessment, Obama is not a pro environmental president. http://act.credoaction.com/event/events/event.html?r=232168&event_id=2322&i…

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Astro camera
by Chuck Hards 07 Dec '11

07 Dec '11

Some of you know that I've been slowly accumulating the necessary items for digital imaging over the last few years. I finally settled on a camera. I must admit that I was just about to go the DSLR route, due largely to the wonderful work done by local astro-imager David Rankin. I will still explore that avenue as the budget allows (I love terrestrial photography too, being a long-time film shooter with my trusty old Pentax SLRs), but for my entry-level camera into the digital astro world, I took adavantage of a $100 discount and bought the Orion StarShoot Pro Deep Space Color Imaging Camera V2.0. I want to get the basics down and develop some skills with a color imager before I delve into mono and tri-color narrowband imaging, a year or three down the road. Based on the reviews I've read, this is a very good camera for the entry-level digital imager. The resolution is very good compared to less pricey beginners cameras, albeit at nearly 3 times the price, it's still much less expensive than the next step up the astro-camera foodchain, with similar resolution. The only remaining piece of hardware required is a new laptop, and I'm hoping Santa got my letter in time. ;-) I've been playing around with Registax and a Photoshop clone, getting the hang of image processing and manipulation. I need to delve into software more closely now that the equipment inventory is just about complete. Any advice or recommendations are welcome, thanks!

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