Happy New Year from Utah Moms for Clean Air!

With the New Year upon us tomorrow and resolutions lurking like the inversion, what better time to make a resolution that will really make a difference? Make a personal commitment to help improve our air quality all along the Wasatch Front!!

We have already had too many “Red Air” days this winter, and by now most of us know that approximately half the pollution gooping up the valley air came out of someones tailpipe. So in some ways the solution is relatively straightforward — we need to drive less, especially when inversion season is upon us. Driving less means better health for everyone in the community.

How can you contribute to cleaner air for 2010? Join the Clear the Air Challenge for the Inversion Season.

Make your Clean Air New Year’s Resolution to reduce pollution.

Please also visit the Clear The Air Challenge Facebook page and check out a list of examples.

Reading others resolutions and actions may inspire you. So, get creative and list examples of your own actions to Clear The Air this winter. Your commitment to help Clear The Air is a New Year’s resolution that effects not only your own health, but every person in our community.

Please encourage other people to join this grass-roots effort to take back our clean air!

Please make your resolution today and share the challenge.

Have a safe, happy, and healthy 2010!!

With warm 2010 wishes,

Utah Moms for Clean Air champions, Debbie, Cameron, Erin, Mary, Cherise, Michelle, Courtney, and Kathy

By Lynn Arave
Deseret News
Published: Monday, Dec. 28, 2009 4:32 p.m. MST

With northern Utah’s air quality at unhealthy levels, especially in Salt Lake and Davis counties, one doctor strongly advises against exercising outdoors in the murky air.

“It’s a bad idea to go out and exercise in it. It’s kind of like you were exercising smoking a pack of cigarettes. You’re better off not exercising in it,” said Dr. Brian Moench, an anesthesiologist who works at LDS Hospital and is president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment.

The Utah Division of Air Quality called Monday “red alert” day in Salt Lake and Davis counties, while it was a “yellow” day in Utah and Weber counties. And the extended area forecast is for “unhealthy” conditions through at least Wednesday.

Moench said it is simply a misconception that bad air is only detrimental to those with respiratory problems.

“It’s unhealthy for everybody,” he said. “The bottom line is you’re better off remaining indoors. It is really hard to overstate the impact.”

Some studies show that effects of air pollution can linger up to 30 days in a person’s body, Moench said. Skipping exercise for a day or two is better than going out in the foul air.

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The purity of indoor air is also often overstated and that indoor air can have unique pollutants that outdoor air doesn’t, he said. Eventually outdoor pollution does infiltrate indoors to some degree, too.

“The difference between outdoor and indoor air is not as great as people think,” he said.

Moench said young children and human embryos are the most susceptible to air pollution.

“We’d like to see the country take it more seriously,” he said.

Even in non-inversion, non-hazy air, it is wise not to exercise on or near a busy road, Moench said. Even two blocks away, the air will be cleaner.

Additional information on air quality health advisories is available at www.airquality.utah.gov.

Residents of northern Utah can expect the fog and haze to continue for at least one more day and then a new snowstorm should clear the air somewhat Wednesday.

In the meantime, the coldest of air is gone, for at least the next week.

According to the Salt Lake Office of the National Weather Service, the daytime high Tuesday is expected to reach almost freezing — 31 degrees — and Wednesday could actually rise above the freezing mark at 33 degrees.

There’s a 30 percent chance of snow during the day Tuesday, a 40 percent chance Tuesday night and 50 percent chance Wednesday.

The normal daytime temperature for this time of year is about 36 degrees. However, for 21 of the 28 days in December, temperatures both day and night have been below normal and are running almost seven degrees below the average daily value.

The Bryce Canyon Airport set an all-time overnight low temperature record for the date Monday morning at 17 degrees below zero. That broke the 1966 record of 14 degrees below zero.

Also, Wendover on Sunday shivered at a record daytime high of just 12 degrees, one degree under the previous 1990 record for a Dec. 27.

** Editorial note by Cherise Udell: The era of big coal is over. Coal-fired power plants are falling like dominoes across the country. Here in Utah, we had our own victory with the Sevier Power Plant, which was dealt a legal death blow last week.**

By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: December 1, 2009

WASHINGTON — A large Southern utility said Tuesday that it would close 30 percent of its North Carolina coal-fired power plants by 2017, a step that represents a bet that natural gas prices will stay acceptably low and that stricter rules are coming on sulfur dioxide emissions, which cause acid rain.

The utility, Progress Energy, based in Raleigh, said it would close 11 coal-fired power plants built between the 1950s and 1970s.

“Some of these plants are quite old,” said Bill Johnson, the chief executive of the company. But, he added, “They have a lot of useful life left in them, absent the need to put emissions control units on them.”

Mr. Johnson also said the company was taking a risk by reducing its output of carbon dioxide, which is not yet regulated, in the near term. He and others expect that Congress will eventually impose a limit on carbon dioxide emissions, possibly in the form of percentage reductions based on a baseline year. By closing the plants now, Progress is effectively cutting its baseline, meaning it may have to reduce emissions even further in the future.

“We need to do the right thing, regardless of that, and this is the right thing,” he said in a telephone interview. If there is a control system added later, he said, “we’d be making a strong argument, ‘Don’t penalize us for doing the right thing.’ ”

While the short-term substitute is natural gas, the long-term plan is a nuclear backbone for the company’s generating system, he said.

The plants being closed, at four sites, have a combined capacity of nearly 1,500 megawatts. Progress has spent more than $2 billion to put state-of-the-art controls on 2,500 megawatts of coal generation, the company said. And it has already announced plans for one new gas-fired plant and will soon announce additional plans, the company said. Progress is also planning to build two nuclear reactors in North Carolina and two more in Florida, but none will be in use by 2017.

Gov. Bev Perdue said in a statement that the announcement by Progress was important for the state’s air quality. “The transition toward cleaner sources of energy is good for the environment and the economy,” she said.

Progress said it might repower some coal-burning plants with wood waste. It does not anticipate large-scale wind or solar power in the near future, Mr. Johnson said. There is good wind offshore, but the area routinely experiences hurricanes that are stronger than existing wind machines can handle, he said.

Duke, another utility that operates in North Carolina, is closing some coal plants but is building a new one.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/business/energy-environment/02coal.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y