Bellingham Comments from Digital Recorder - EISs for the Proposed ...

GATEWAY PACIFIC TERMINAL EIS SCOPING HEARING VOL. II
COURT REPORTER: BETH DRUMMOND PROCEEDING DATE: October 27, 2012
Page 64
1 MS. STRAUSZ-CLARK: 35, 36 and 37. 35 you're at
2 the microphone. 36 and 37 you're at the desk.
3 Please state your name for the record.
4 THE SPEAKER: Hi. My name is Betty Kipp. I live
5 in Van Zandt, Washington.
6 Something I haven't really heard driven here is
7 that power coal is radioactive coal, so that's one thing to
8 think about.
9 I want to point out that we talk about CO2 levels
10 in climate warming; really, we should be thinking about heat
11 as the conductor.
12 And if you're focused on heat, and black
13 substances absorb all light, light reflects black and warms,
14 so black, in a sense, is a heat sink.
15 The density of the structure also affects -- so
16 I'm just pointing it out that not only are these 80 acres of
17 heat coal -- a heat sink -- an enormous, enormous battery, a
18 reservoir of heat, the train tracks and the trains
19 themselves are mobile heat sinks. Just because the train is
20 moving, doesn't mean it's not a hot train moving, so take a
21 look at that.
22 It's not just the burning of the coal that's the
23 problem. The coal itself, it's in earth, is in straight
24 air. And the coal itself is absorbing heat and the
25 atmosphere will not allow it to get out.