Art in Paradise, Yes!
Iapplaud James Heflin's new column, Art in Paradise, and heartily encourage its continuation. The role that art plays in expressing and celebrating the depth of human experience has been denied too long. Funding cuts have mistakenly given the impression that art is no longer important in our society, except perhaps when it can be sold for large sums of money. In opening a discussion on the subject, Heflin is letting some fresh air into an arena which has become very stale in our country.
I'd like to respond to Heflin's question of whether artists who are fortunate enough to create without financial concerns are contributing relevant material. Emotional struggles, family struggles and personal struggles can stimulate artistic expression as much as or more than financial struggles. Many great artists in history were able to create because a patron supported them. Having been a "starving actor" in NYC as well as a struggling writer in Western Mass., I believe that sometimes what's needed for an artist to create great art is to have enough time and space and freedom from worry (including financial worries) to reach into the innermost wellspring from which art flows and grow whatever gift they've been given. I look forward to more of Heflin's exploration in Art in Paradise.
Katherine Mayfield
Sunderland
Power Plants Waste Heat
While it's true power plants have a choice between using river water or evaporation for cooling or using no water (air cooling), you're missing the point ["Shopping for Water," March 5, 2009]. Yes, dry cooling is less efficient, so more fossil fuel will be burned and more greenhouse gases generated to make the same amount of electricity. But it's possible to increase efficiency and reduce the cooling requirement by using heat instead of throwing it away. The problem is that large, decentralized power plants waste most of their input energy as heat; that's why so much cooling is required. This is true whether the source is biomass, natural gas, coal, or nuclear. The average power plant in the U.S. wastes 64 percent of its input energy as heat. A state-of-the-art combined cycle plant could push this as low as 45 percent.
A cogeneration plant can reduce this waste to 15 percent. Cogeneration, or combined heat and power, uses both the heat and the electric output. This can be done by locating a large industrial heat user near the power plant, or by building smaller, more centralized power plants near where the heat is needed. Waste heat can be used for making steam or hot water for buildings and/or industrial processes.
If we build plants that can use most or all of the waste heat, then we won't be asking our rivers and reservoirs to give up so much water for cooling.
Todd Holland
Energy Manager, Five Colleges, Inc.
