Massena, NY, is on the St. Lawrence River at the Canadian border

From an Article by Lucy Grindon, America Corps, October 18, 2022

Air Products, a company that makes industrial gases and chemicals, has announced plans to open a new liquid hydrogen manufacturing facility in Massena. The facility will require an investment of about $500 million.

Patrick Kelly, CEO of the St. Lawrence County Industrial Development Agency, said the project reaffirms Massena’s status as an important regional manufacturing center. Multiple plants for companies like General Motors, Reynolds, and Alcoa have closed or downsized there over the past few decades. “It’s a major milestone in establishing New York State as a hydrogen energy leader,” Kelly said.

NASA calls liquid hydrogen “the fuel of choice for space exploration.” It’s often used to power rockets. It’s also seen as a key green energy source that can reduce carbon emissions and slow the effects of climate change. Liquid hydrogen is becoming more common in the shipping and manufacturing industries. In the future, it may be used for more cars.

Earlier this year, Governor Kathy Hochul said she wants New York to become a “regional clean energy hydrogen hub.”

To make liquid hydrogen, water and electricity are required. Kelly said the area around Massena is rich in those resources. “We have low-cost renewable energy, we have an abundance of water,” he said. The New York Power Authority (NYPA) has made a deal to provide Air Products with low-cost electricity. Some of that electricity will come from NYPA’s hydropower dam on the St. Lawrence River.

Kelly said the area also has plenty of workers with manufacturing skills because of its history of aluminum production, mining, paper mills, and food production. Those workers will be another important resource that Air Products will need, he said. The facility still has yet to be built. Commercial operations are scheduled to begin in the 2026-27 fiscal year.

NYPA spokesperson Paul DeMichele said that after Air Products starts using NYPA’s low-cost electricity, the company will have three years to create at least 90 new full-time jobs, per its deal with the state. “There’s a hundred-year history or better history in Massena of being a world-class manufacturing community,” Kelly said. “There’s a specific and someone unique skill set in running these kinds of facilities.”

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SEE ALSO: Ammonia might just be the ticket for a more sustainable future, Christopher McFadden, Interesting Engineering, October 19, 2022

Largely used to make fertilizer, ammonia might have another trick up its sleeve. It could, some claim, be the “green” holy grail of alternatives fuels. This is because it uses the same existing transportation and distribution methods that industries are already using without requiring any infrastructure changes. In the past ten years, attempts to employ ammonia in gas turbines and internal combustion engines have significantly increased.

As a potential fuel source, ammonia has some significant advantages:

>> It is both carbon-free and relatively safe for the environment (excluding carbon costs for its production).
>> It has three hydrogen atoms and could perhaps be employed as a hydrogen carrier.
>> Compared to many other fuels, their manufacturing, storage, transportation, and distribution are significantly simpler.
>> It is practical and affordable for use in applications.
>> It could serve as a substitute for kerosene, diesel, and gasoline.
>> It can be considered for all combustion systems, including gas turbines and engines.
>> It might be a viable fuel for renewable energy production in remote places.

Smoke From California Wildfires Is Reaching the East Coast

From an Article by Jennifer Calfas, Time Magazine, August 10, 2018

Smoke billowing from the destructive fires burning through California this summer has spread far beyond the Golden State — reaching the East Coast.

The National Weather Service says smoke from the raging fires out West has impacted cities thousands of miles away — and the atmosphere above them. Residents in states like Missouri, Ohio, Mississippi, Virginia and even New York and Massachusetts can see the smoke manifest itself through grey skies and vibrant sunsets, the National Weather Service says. And those in fewer states throughout the Midwest, South and East Coast are breathing in air that has been impacted by the smoke as well.

But how exactly does smoke travel this far? Andy Edman, chief of the science technology infusion division at the National Weather Service, says small particles of smoke that come from the fires can stay in the air and move through the Earth’s atmosphere — all the way to the East Coast. The smoke sits more than a mile above the Earth’s surface, but can move down through strong winds called jet streams and have an impact on air quality.

“Where the smoke is in the atmosphere will make a difference on the impact a human being will receive,” Edman says. For example, with the smoke far from the Earth’s surface, Edman says, “if you’re in D.C. or New York, if you walk outside, it will all seem sunny but if you look up at the sky, it will be grey.”

The National Weather Service has two relevant maps that explores the issue. One below shows the path of “vertically integrated smoke” — that is, the smoke that sits far above Earth’s surface in the atmosphere and impacts the sky you see above you.

The other map below shows the movement of “near-surface smoke,” which, as its name suggests, shows the levels of smoke near the Earth’s surface that have an impact on air quality.

Particles from smoke near the Earth’s surface can cause a range of health issues, including respiratory problems, and aggravate lung and heart issues. Officials advise people living in areas impacted by the smoke to take safety measures by staying in doors and running air conditioning units.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station captured images of smoke from these fires from space earlier this week, showing the smoke’s eastward shift and massive reach. Edman, of the National Weather Service, says not all fires can create this long-ranging stream of smoke, but the cumulation of fire after fire after fire in the state has made it possible this time around.

“When you have that many fires, it’s not uncommon for that smoke to go fairly long ways downstream,” Edman says.

Smoke particles from fires in California traveled far last year, too, when satellite images from NASA showed the smoke traveling over to the East Coast. Thanks to new technology, Edman says, the National Weather Service has been better able to track the movement of smoke across the U.S. from fires based in California, capturing it in visualizations and maps for just a few years now.

Meanwhile, in California, 15 active wildfires are burning throughout the state as a destructive and record-breaking fire season rages on. The Mendocino Complex fire just north of San Francisco became the largest fire in state history earlier this week, scorching through 307,447 acres and destroying 119 homes as of Friday morning. Other fires have blazed through tens of thousands of acres across the state. That includes the 181,000-acre Carr fire, which has destroyed more than 1,000 homes in Redding, Calif., and taken at least eight lives. The Ferguson fire blazing near Yosemite National Park prompted park officials to close popular sections of itfor the first time in 20 years (and during peak season), and the Holy fire down in Orange County forced tens of thousands of residents to evacuate their homes.

Fueled by extremely dry vegetation, record-setting temperatures and the aftermath of a years-long drought, fire seasons in California have grown more intense in recent years and death and destruction has become the norm.

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See also: “Colorado wildfire update: Smoke and haze continue to cloak the state.” By Anna Staver, August 20, 2018

Smoke and haze will be visible throughout Colorado on Monday as firefighters across the west continue to work to put out dozens of wildfires. It’s been a difficult season for wildland firefighters around the county. In Colorado, five fires that started this season grew large enough to make the state’s top 20 list. Presently, 12 wildfires are burning in the Centennial State, but most are at 90 percent containment. Here’s a roundup of major wildfires around Colorado.

The final draft of the New York Department of Environmental Conservation’s report reviewed both environmental impacts and socioeconomic impacts of Marcellus shale industrial development on towns and rural communities.  The mammoth report (over 1500 pages) projected that at its height, natural gas production could employ 25,000 workers and support 29,000 jobs indirectly.  But the report cautioned that the industry development may be so intensive that many stresses will come to to bear upon communities.  To counter that and pace out development, the report recommended that well permits include time limits on construction to relieve pressure on schools, roads, and public services.

Per a Bloomberg news report, the DEC report states, “Where appropriate, the department would impose specific construction windows within well construction permits in order to ensure that drilling activity and its cumulative adverse socioeconomic effects are not unduly concentrated in a specific geographical area.”

A NGI Shale Daily headline states that the oil and gas industry is largely supportive of the DEC’s final draft report on the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing.

The public comment period was extended from 60 days to 90 days.  Some environment/public health groups sought an 180 day comment period.

Ken Ward Jr. observed in the Gazette blog, Sustained Outrage, “Of course, New York has something called State Environmental Quality Review, which requires the sponsoring or approving governmental body to identify and mitigate the significant environmental impacts of the activity it is proposing or permitting. West Virginia environmental groups have long called for passage of such a law here, but the Legislature has never thought that weighing the costs and benefits of things like coal mining or natural gas drilling was worthwhile.”

Citizens have been keeping pressure on the Select Committee on Marcellus Shale to get proper legislation passed.  Senator Orphy Klempa says that the select committee will meet during September interims, and his goal is to have legislation “ready to go” for next year’s regular session, if not before then.  Klempa says that he and other committee members are learning as much as they can about the drilling process, and will be attending the Shale Gas Insight 2011 conference in Philadelphia next week.  The conference is sponsored by the Marcellus Shale Coalition, which promotes the “Friends of Marcellus.”

Senator Doug Facemire thinks it is possible that a bill be finalized during interims this month.  He also “wants to see this industry thrive, because our state needs the revenue, and we need the jobs. But prosperity at the expense of the environment or the citizens is not good, either.”

… Not good? How about not acceptable? Republican Senator Greg Ball of New York recently took a tour of Pennsylvania, and said it would be “over his dead body” that the damage and pain he witnessed be repeated in his state.

While New York awaits documents from three large energy companies in order to review the accuracy of their reserve estimates, the USGS released a new report today that significantly increases its previous estimate of how much natural gas is contained in the Marcellus Shale.  However, the estimate is still far below the 500 trillion cubic feet estimated by Penn State in 2008.

In 2002 the United States Geologic Survey estimated the Marcellus Shale to contain 1.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 10 million barrels of natural gas liquids– not much when spread out over such a large area.  The USGS now estimates that number to be closer to 84 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable natural gas and 3.4 billion barrels of technically recoverable natural gas liquids.

Flammable tap water.  You’ve seen it on Gasland.  You can find several YouTube videos of this event on the net.  Now the research has caught up with the reality.  Duke University studied water quality in the vicinity of hydraulic fracturing and produced incontrovertible evidence that fracking contaminates drinking water wells with methane gas. The study published Monday found potentially dangerous concentrations of methane gas in water from wells near drilling sites in northeastern Pennsylvania, although not in central New York, where gas drilling is less extensive. But in an unexpected finding, the team of Duke University scientists did not find any trace of the chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing process in 68 wells tested in Pennsylvania and Otsego County in central New York. In hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, water, sand and chemicals are injected underground to crack the rock and get natural gas to flow into a well. Critics of the technique have worried more about the chemicals since companies have refused to make public the proprietary blends used, and many of the ingredients can be toxic.

On average, water from wells located less than a mile from drilling sites had 17 times more methane than water tested from wells farther away, according to the study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  Methane is not known to be toxic, but in high concentrations it can be explosive and cause unconsciousness and even death, since it displaces oxygen needed to breathe. Of the 60 wells tested for methane gas, 14 had levels of methane within or above a hazard range set by the Department of Interior for gas seeping from coal mines — all but one of them near a gas well. In nine wells, concentrations were so high that the government would recommend immediate action to reduce the methane level. Methane is released naturally by bacteria as they break down organic matter. The researchers’ analysis shows that the type of methane in the wells with the highest concentrations is coming from deep in the earth, the same place tapped by companies in search of natural gas.

In the most severe case, a homeowner in Bradford County, Pa. who leased her property to a gas company has so much methane coming out of her tap she can light her water on fire. A natural gas well is located 800 feet from her house.