Thursday, January 6, 2011

Black Billowing Smoke Belching From Big Allis Ravenwood Generating Plant Across East River From Roosevelt Island


Anyone else notice the huge amount of smoke spewing out of the Big Allis Ravenswood Power Plant across the East River from Roosevelt Island in Long Island City earlier this morning?  Roosevelt Island Historical Society President Judy Berdy did, sent in the picture above and asks:
What is this blast of pollution coming from the power plant.? It only lasted a minute but it was impressive.
More pictures from Ms. Berdy of the belching Ravenswood Keyspan Power Plant here.

In 2009, Roosevelt Island 360 wrote a post expressing concern over potential health problems associated by being close to Big Allis:
... For many in Queens it is believed to be the source of their asthma problems and hence the reason many in LOC refer to the area as Asthma Alley. If Roosevelt Island did not have the breezes associated with the river those issues might be ours as well. To my knowledge there has not been any kind of c omprehensive study of island residents or our kids in years, if at all....
The Harbor and Hudson Class Blog reported of Big Allis:
... At the time, of the installation, Big Allis was the worlds largest power generator.  It uses oil and natural gas.  Currently the site produces about 20% of NYCs energy needs.  Ravenswood was owned by Con Ed from the time it was built until 1999, when due to deregulation, Con Ed was forced to sell its in-city generating capacity. KeySpan bought the site for $600 million US dollars and later merged with National Grid.  In 2008, New York State Public Service Commission forced National Grid to sell the site which landed it in the hands of a Canadian company called TransCanada Corp for $2.9 billion US dollars.  Not surprisingly, the Site is located right on the east river in Queens across the street for a large public housing project known as the Queensbridge houses....
According to TransCanada, the owner of the Big Allis Ravenswood Generating Plant:
Ravenswood Generating Station (Ravenswood), located in Queens, NY, is a 2,480 megawatt (MW) power plant that consists of multiple units employing steam turbine, combined cycle and combustion turbine technology.

The plant uses advanced technology and controls to minimize impact on the air and water. To reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions, Units 10, 20 and 30 have all been retrofitted with Close Coupled Over Air Fired systems. Unit 40 controls aimed at reducing the unit’s environmental impact include a dry low NOx combustion system, selective catalytic reduction and a multi-cell air cooled condenser. The 2004 Combined Cycle Journal Award for Power Plant Efficiency and Environmentally Friendly Design was awarded to Unit 40 in recognition of these environmental controls.
Ravenswood has the capacity to serve approximately 21 per cent of New York City’s peak load.

2 comments :

auto lubricant Mt. Laurel said...

This is certainly very “impressive,” as you say it. How unfortunate that as technology is improving and we get to explore and develop new innovations, the environment is compromised. I do hope that such issues will be taken care of because it will all be for our benefit. Thank you for sharing this post.

Anonymous said...

I've been surfing online more than 4 hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. It's pretty worth enough for me.
In my view, if all web owners and bloggers made good content as you did, the net will be a
lot more useful than ever before.

Check out my site ... www.emiratescorner.com