How A Tiny Toad Could Upend a US Geothermal Project (nytimes.com) 101
There's a tiny, black-freckled toad that likes the water in hot springs.
Unfortunately, the only place in the world where the species is found is on 760 acres of wetlands about 100 miles east of Reno, Nevada, according to the New York Times. And that's near the site for two renewable-energy geothermal plants which poses "significant risk to the well-being of the species," according to America's Fish and Wildlife Service — which just announced an emergency measure declaring it an endangered species. The temporary protection, which went into effect immediately and lasts for 240 days, was imposed to ward off the toad's potential extinction, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a statement, adding that it would consider public comments about whether to extend the toad's emergency listing.
The designation would add another hurdle for a plan to build two power plants with the encouragement of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The project is already the subject of a lawsuit filed by conservationists and a nearby Native American tribe. They hope the emergency listing can be used to block construction, which recently resumed.... The suit contended that the geothermal plants would dry up nearby hot springs sacred to the tribe and wipe out the Dixie Valley toad species.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service argues that "protecting small population species like this ensures the continued biodiversity necessary to maintain climate-resilient landscapes in one of the driest states in the country."
They were only recently scientifically described — or declared a unique species — in 2017, making the Dixie Valley toad ">the first new toad species to be described in the U.S. in nearly 50 years. And they are truly unique. When they were described, scientists analyzed 14 different morphological characteristics like size, shape, and markings. Dixie Valley toads scored "significantly different" from other western toad species in all categories.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader walterbyrd for sharing the link!
Unfortunately, the only place in the world where the species is found is on 760 acres of wetlands about 100 miles east of Reno, Nevada, according to the New York Times. And that's near the site for two renewable-energy geothermal plants which poses "significant risk to the well-being of the species," according to America's Fish and Wildlife Service — which just announced an emergency measure declaring it an endangered species. The temporary protection, which went into effect immediately and lasts for 240 days, was imposed to ward off the toad's potential extinction, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a statement, adding that it would consider public comments about whether to extend the toad's emergency listing.
The designation would add another hurdle for a plan to build two power plants with the encouragement of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The project is already the subject of a lawsuit filed by conservationists and a nearby Native American tribe. They hope the emergency listing can be used to block construction, which recently resumed.... The suit contended that the geothermal plants would dry up nearby hot springs sacred to the tribe and wipe out the Dixie Valley toad species.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service argues that "protecting small population species like this ensures the continued biodiversity necessary to maintain climate-resilient landscapes in one of the driest states in the country."
They were only recently scientifically described — or declared a unique species — in 2017, making the Dixie Valley toad ">the first new toad species to be described in the U.S. in nearly 50 years. And they are truly unique. When they were described, scientists analyzed 14 different morphological characteristics like size, shape, and markings. Dixie Valley toads scored "significantly different" from other western toad species in all categories.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader walterbyrd for sharing the link!
Nevada? WTF? (Score:2)
So they managed to find the only piece of wetland in a state that's almost all pretty much uninhabitable desert?
Move elsewhere. There is so much of Nevada which is uninteresting as fuck.
Re:Nevada? WTF? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: Nevada? WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Nevada? WTF? (Score:2)
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Re: Nevada? WTF? (Score:2)
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As the other respondent said, doesn't solve pollution and sustainability problems.
It also doesn't address heat islanding issues of large solar arrays. Which IS actual environmental damage.
Re: Nevada? WTF? (Score:2)
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Have you looked into how little most panels are recycled?
Sorry, no handwavium here.
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The cost of power from this plant would be about the same as wind turbines.
So the money can be spent on wind turbines instead for about the same benefit to the climate.
The primary benefit of geo over wind is that it is less intermittent.
Re: Nevada? WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, except geothermal is more reliable than wind.
Re: Nevada? WTF? (Score:2)
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The cost of power from this plant would be about the same as wind turbines.
So the money can be spent on wind turbines instead for about the same benefit to the climate.
The primary benefit of geo over wind is that it is less intermittent.
Or maybe a solar plant. This is Nevada... famous for sunshine and deserts.
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Except that dropping a nice REFLECTIVE solar array there does environmental damage too.
And is only an intermittent source of power, as opposed to geothermal.
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Except that dropping a nice REFLECTIVE solar array there does environmental damage too.
But there's not much environment to damage in the middle of a desert.
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Again with someone trying to hand-wave real problems away because they don't fit their ideals.
Look into the environmental impacts of large thermal plumes. on downwind environments.
Not to mention what large fields of these do to surrounding wildlife.
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Except wind turbines aren't a form of continuous power.
Also, wind turbines have their own forms of environmental damage.
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What is preventing them from building a geothermal plant that also continues to provide water flow for the toads and hot springs?
More than likely they will put in some boreholes and set heat exchangers into them which will circulate ammonia (or some other chemical that provides a phase change within the heat of the water in the borehole) in a closed loop system to drive turbines.
There would be no value to siphoning water out of the springs, this isn't some old fashioned water wheel
If they do it correctly th
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Or, you know.. maybe we have consumed as much of nature as we should, and learn to leave just a tad lighter a footprint on the planet?
I agree. So we should fuck this particular frog in an effort to save thousands of other species which are destroying through our fossil fuel addiction, something this project is supposed to help ween us from.
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We can't actually feed the number of people that we do without using industrial scale chemistry. The feed stock for that chemistry is petroleum. Now it is smart to take animal manure and use that as fertilizer, but we have to grow a lot of animal feed in order to produce that fertilizer. We're actually just taking the fertilizer as a by product of meat and dairy production. Of course we can use far less of the chemical fertilizers and pesticides that we do today, they're overused today. But 100% organic is
Re:Nevada? WTF? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Nevada? WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's basically desert, and it's reasonably far South. Solar is the obvious choice. You need to build a battery, but it should still be a lot cheaper than geothermal, which is always expensive, and often costs more than it is ever worth. I used to be a reasonably large proponent of geothermal, but then they built a few, and the problems became evident. Iceland makes theirs work, but they've got live volcanoes to work with.
Re: Nevada? WTF? (Score:2)
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Solar is extremely expensive.
Not any longer.
At best, solar only works during the day time.
Correct.
A lot of materials are required to make solar panels, and those panels don't last forever.
Pipes and other items for geothermal don't either.
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*Facepalm*
So you think putting up a bunch of solar panels PLUS A BATTERY INSTALLATION is going to be "cheaper" than a geothermal site?
LOL!
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Everyone needs green energy.
Have you looked at where the plant is supposed to be located? There aren't any people within a 50km radius. The toad... give them a hot tub or something to chill in.
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There must be other feasible ways to get more renewable energy there, surely?
There are, but NIMBY's will just find another animal to point to in protest against those as well. Don't we have an ex-president talking about bird graveyards every time wind power comes up? Or loons talking about rare earth metal mines destroying a forest when we talk about solar panels?
The "find another solution" is only valid if the other solutions would be agreeable, but as it stands in nearly all cases protecting a particular piece of land or a particular species of frog isn't actually the reason these
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There are significant wetlands throughout the state. Walker and Pyramid Lakes are significant bodies of water on the eastern side of the state, and Lake Tahoe sits on the border with California. The Owyhee River in the northeast part of the state runs perennially, and feeds the Wild Horse Reservoir. There are a lot of small lakes in the Ruby Mountains, and there are marshlands in Clover Valley to the east. Portions of the Humboldt and Amargosa Rivers flow year-round. There are also artesian wells and s
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I also take issue with your characterization of the majority of the state as "uninteresting as fuck", but that is a matter of opinion, I suppose.
Same... I drove all over Nevada, it's awesome, with lots of gorgeous scenery.
Re:Nevada? WTF? (Score:4, Funny)
So they managed to find the only piece of wetland in a state that's almost all pretty much uninhabitable desert?
Move elsewhere. There is so much of Nevada which is uninteresting as fuck.
Nevada is basically Mars with slot machines.
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Don't forge mass shootings!
Re: Nevada? WTF? (Score:2)
Uninteresting maybe, but I find the desert to be rather peaceful.
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Oh yes fair. Nevada has a lot spare, much more than they have wetland.
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I've been to Dixie Valley. Nevada wetter than you think. There is a large marsh near Fallon, and another at the Humboldt sinks. The mountains are high enough to collect rain and snow quite well, and this runs downhill to make little pockets of wetlands in all sorts of places.
That said, Eden Valley (NE of Winnemucca) is somewhat optimistically named, possibly by the same marketing department that named Greenland.
The interesting question is if you don't build the geothermal plants will climate change kill the
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I wonder why they cannot build a geothermal plant that would also support the toads and existing hot springs
Or, is it just a complete fiction that the plant would even threaten the toads i the first place?
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PS, there is a lithium mine in Nevada that is blocked because it has a rare variety of buckwheat growing there.
That doesn't make sense to me because buckwheat is native to Eurasia. Is there like some farmer growing buckwheat stopping the mine or something? If it's growing wild, wouldn't that make it a feral invasive?
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https://www.wildflower.org/pla... [wildflower.org]
The reason they use Latin names for official plant names is that the common name tends to follow what the first person to classify a new species thinks it looks like.
Great Basin Desert Buckwheat, Great Basin Desert Wild Buckwheat
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Yes, when any group profits from outrage, like the environmental groups do by outraging people into sending them money, then they will simply manufacture situations to be outraged by
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toad that likes the water in hot springs (Score:2)
Who doesn't?
just wait for war and then that power plant will o (Score:1)
just wait for war and then that power plant will open with no EPA review.
Re: just wait for war and then that power plant w (Score:2)
" full-blown retard"
Self project much? The thread was about war and all the recent talk about "civil war coming to America" started because of Trump. Now put on your red hat and go back to bleating about how you brownshirts are going to "make America great again".
And what does this have to do with a power plant? (Score:1)
C'mon man.
The neighbors just didn't want a power plant going in next door. Doesn't matter if it is carbon neutral or environmentally virtuous, and there is no hypocrisy on their part, they just don't want.
I sympathize with the neighbors. My parents "lived out in the country", and the Dear Leader of the "township" they are in wanted approval to build a tank terminal on his land. My parents and their neighbors would have the nuisance of a parade of heavy trucks rolling by the highway fronting their pr
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I've been watching the slide for 30 years, I think it is dangerous to lay the blame at Trump's feet. Neo-cons and anarcho-capitalists were doing their thing before Trump even considered running for President (and he was in and our of the GOP at least 5 times during that period). The rise of talk radio as a form of shock entertainment for the masses expanded into a craven power grab to motivate voters to vote against their own self interest. The tea party, Qanon, and Trump are just symptoms. Or rather, they
Re: just wait for war and then that power plant w (Score:2)
"Trump improved things"
I heard Mussolini made the trains run on time. And Hitler had the Autobahn created.
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Nuclear plants typically need a lot of flowing water for coolant. That's why a bunch of nuclear plants in France had to shut down recently. So Nevada may not be a good choice.
OTOH, it would be a good choice for a large solar-thermal plant. But talk to PG&E about their experience with the one in the Mojave desert first. (I know they built it, I don't know the results.)
Anyway, some kind of solar+storage plant could be a good choice for Nevada. But not something that requires a lot of water.
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Water not as big of an issue (Score:2)
Nuclear plants typically need a lot of flowing water for coolant.
That is true, but they do not actually consume the water...
If you look at a map of Nevada, you can see there are a number of large lakes - having driven I-80 a number of times, I can say there are absolutely great barren areas within pumping distance of large lakes. You just pump the water over, and pump it back into the lake.
If you want to think really big, imagine a fleet of nuclear plants large enough to power pumping water from the ocean
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That might be a really good idea. It means you've got to deal with salt water corrosion, but the application might well justify the extra bother.
But I'm not sure that it's a good enough idea to justify pumping the water all the way to Nevada. Bakersfield would be a lot easier, and the San Joaquin valley needs the water too.
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Unsurprisingly, the largest nuclear power plant in America, is in a desert
Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station [wikipedia.org] sits along the Gila River basin, which is dry most of the year. They cool the station with treated waste water from the Phoenix Metropolitan area
"Due to its location in the Arizona desert, Palo Verde is the only nuclear generating facility in the world that is not located adjacent to a large body of above-ground water. The facility evaporates water from the treated sewage of several nearby municip
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OK, so maybe near Reno is a good idea. Most of the plant designs I've heard of depend on the flow of cool water, but your example is a good argument that this isn't the only way to go.
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The hot water would kill anything in the lakes, rivers, or the ocean in the area where it was dumped.
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I donâ(TM)t think it is a coincidence that Nevada has no nuclear power though it should be an ideal location. Nuclear power is expensive and require payment before power is delivered.
Much of Geothermal, like hydropower in Nevada, will be paid by federal taxes. When the feds pay for most of a nuclear power plant, we will see one in Nevada.
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Las Vegas lives on power subsidized by the rest of the US.
Can you explain this? I am not challenging your statement, just asking for an explanation of how it works.
Re: Build what makes sense where (Score:2)
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> To me a geothermal plant in Nevada doesn't seem to make nearly as much sense, as something like a bunch of large nuclear plants.
We have a limited supply of nuclear fuel. Especially since we sold 20% of it to Russia.
Geothermal can provide gobs of energy for the foreseeable future.
This is good. (Score:1)
Morphological characteristics like ... (Score:2)
Those could also be symptoms of genetic isolation from other populations of their species. That it is already endangered, before the power plants are even built seems to indicate that this population is moribund. Let it die off.
Some must die so others can live (Score:3)
Honestly at this point one has to ask about the greater good. Some estimates give 200-2000 distinct species going extinct every year. What is so important about this one frog that is keeping us on a polluting path to further destroying the planet?
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Whoever downmodded me can you reply AC and tell me why you think the toad is more important than literally all animals on the planet put together? I want to know if you mod was by accident or if you really are that stupid.
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Probably because green ideology is anti-human, and the unspoken subtext to your "some must die", is that it applies equally if not more to people.
In a topic specifically about frogs and in a post specifically about species of animals, if you read the "unspoken subtext" to apply to humans you may want to look into the mirror and see if a psychopath is staring back at you.
Don't read non-existent things into other people's writings.
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Whoever downmodded me can you reply AC and tell me why you think the toad is more important than literally all animals on the planet put together?
It's not about the toad, per se, it's about whether it's 100% necessary to build a plant right there, in a state which is mostly desert.
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Maybe they can save the frog, and still build the plant? The plans have only been delayed, not scraped.
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Maybe the "inbred retard" isn't the one living in the water.
Classic NIMBY (Score:2)
I consider myself an environmentally conscious person, but believe it's very hypocritical to demand that an obscure species be protected while pumping your gas guzzler that is part of a current mass extinction event. I suspect geothermal plants would save more species on the edge of extinction than *maybe* saving a toad that could be protected b
I remember a story about a mouse (Score:2)
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This mouse lived on a farm somewhere. I think California. It was a protected species so they made the farm shutdown. They could no longer cut hay on it. A few years later the mouse was gone because the cut grass was why they were there in the first place. This situation may be nothing like this but I always think of it when I see them shutting down something to protect a niche species.
So... the best plan is to change nothing. Right?
Climate change will also kill the toads... (Score:1)
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Fuck he toads.
Fuck the Indians.
And fuck California too, just for good measure.
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I'm just saying, these little guys might need to take one for the team.
Let's apply that logic to the SUV drivers!
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Which is worse? (Score:2)
Think about it. Which is worse for the planet? The loss of an obscure amphibian that is on the brink of extinction that nobody knew about before, or damage to the entire rest of the planet due to fossil fuel use? Will that tiny population of toads destroy the local ecosystem if it disappears? If its only because of the rare frogs themselves, why not capture as many pairs as possible and move them to captivity to breed them and release them elsewhere to spread the species? Its a win-win and we have done it b
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Nevada is a big fucking desert. There's a place a few miles away which is just as good a spot to build the power plant.
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Nevada is a big fucking desert. There's a place a few miles away which is just as good a spot to build the power plant.
But with the same access to the thermal energy source below ground? You'd think they'd just move it that were the case.
Sounds like an engineering problem to me (Score:2)
Figure out some way to keep the Indians' and toads' hot tub functional on the surface while still getting the steam to spin the turbines, or whatever.
Isnâ(TM)t DNA more compelling than morphology (Score:2)
âoe 14 different morphological characteristics like sizeâ now that we have fast DNA sequencing and comparison tools shouldnâ(TM)t that be used to determine if this really is a unique species?
Typical eco-terrorism (Score:2)
It is quite common in EU, especially in countries which are dependent on russian fossil fuels. There are plenty of "ecological" organisations which are founded by Russia with goal to block and protest any energy sources which are not controlled or dominated by Russia. For example this is how "natural gas" become greener than nuclear plants in Germany.
Bald Eagles (Score:2)
There was a guy who got caught hunting Bald Eagles for food, and so he got arrested. He actually went to a bench trial, and the judge sentenced him to a stiff fine and community service. But the judge was curious and asked the guy what bald eagles taste like. The guy said, "oh pretty much like Spotted Owl."
Extremist agendas in cannibal mode (Score:2)
Environmentalist nuts shut down by environmentalist nuts! Of course behind the curtain you can be certain they've already collected their government handout and on the other side they've collected a fine payout from Democrat billionaires invested in solar path.
There is another style of geothermal that uses the temperature disparity of the surface vs that a few feet below ground. It will more than decimate your energy costs and can be deployed using widely available drilling equipment and is a very cheap ret
iv never understood y tho (Score:1)
why protect endangered species? is the end goal to protect every single species from elimination? so extinction = bad?