Andre Norton Nominees Announced

Here are the nominees for this year's Andre Norton award (an award from the Science Fiction/Fantasy Writers of America for the best Young Adult Fantasy and/or Science Fiction book from the previous year):

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and FantasyBook

• Akata Witch, Nnedi Okorafor (Viking Juvenile)
• Chime, Franny Billingsley (Dial Books; Bloomsbury)
• Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Laini Taylor (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; Hodder & Stoughton)
• Everybody Sees the Ants, A.S. King (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
• The Boy at the End of the World, Greg van Eekhout (Bloomsbury Children’s Books)
• The Freedom Maze, Delia Sherman (Big Mouth House)
• The Girl of Fire and Thorns, Rae Carson (Greenwillow Books)
• Ultraviolet, R.J. Anderson (Orchard Books; Carolrhoda Lab

Usually these are good.

Here's a link to the SFWA site where this is posted.  You can also see the adult books that are nominated this year.  (Hate the innuendo there - stupid "adult book stores" have ruined that phrase.)

DIVERGENT by Veronica Roth

I just read this book, and it was pretty good.  I didn't love everything about it, but I was engrossed within a few chapters and wasn't able to switch to a different book.

It's a dystopian future, with a factionalized community living in the Chicago area, divided into "tribes" or groups based on the virtues that they prize above others - Erudite, Dauntless, Amity, Candor, and Abnegation.  The main character, Beatrice (who renames herself Tris), lives among the Abnegation, but switches to Dauntless when given her choice.  She struggles to survive the training, and succeeds in the end, only to uncover a plot to disrupt the factionalized system and take over the community.  It's kind of an interesting twist, the way that the community is divided.  I also like the bizarre and cruel way that the Dauntless faction trains its recruits and prepares them for the life they will lead.  I like that there are a lot of unanswered questions left for future books, and I might be curious enough to pick up the second book and continue reading.  But I'm not sure that this is anywhere near as interesting as the books that are becoming the gold standard for me - Hunger Games, the Chaos Walking series, and Fablehaven.  (Maybe Lightning Thief and Harry Potter belong in there too, but on a different level.)

It's surprising how many YA authors are trying to recreate this kind of book - I don't know if it was Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Twilight, or some other series that really pushed publishing and authors to consider this genre.  But it's exploding.  I can't keep up.

Anti-Coal Facts

Found this site from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Air Pollution from Coal:

3,700,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary human cause of global warming--as much carbon dioxide as cutting down 161 million trees.

10,000 tons of sulfur dioxide (SO2), which causes acid rain that damages forests, lakes, and buildings, and forms small airborne particles that can penetrate deep into lungs.

500 tons of small airborne particles, which can cause chronic bronchitis, aggravated asthma, and premature death, as well as haze obstructing visibility.

10,200 tons of nitrogen oxide (NOx), as much as would be emitted by half a million late-model cars. NOx leads to formation of ozone (smog) which inflames the lungs, burning through lung tissue making people more susceptible to respiratory illness.

720 tons of carbon monoxide (CO), which causes headaches and place additional stress on people with heart disease.

220 tons of hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds (VOC), which form ozone.

170 pounds of mercury, where just 1/70th of a teaspoon deposited on a 25-acre lake can make the fish unsafe to eat.

225 pounds of arsenic, which will cause cancer in one out of 100 people who drink water containing 50 parts per billion.

114 pounds of lead, 4 pounds of cadmium, other toxic heavy metals, and trace amounts of uranium.

Waste generated:

Solid wasteWaste created by a typical 500-megawatt coal plant includes more than 125,000 tons of ash and 193,000 tons of sludge from the smokestack scrubber each year. Nationally, more than 75% of this waste is disposed of in unlined, unmonitored onsite landfills and surface impoundments.

Toxic substances in the waste -- including arsenic, mercury, chromium, and cadmium -- can contaminate drinking water supplies and damage vital human organs and the nervous system. One study found that one out of every 100 children who drink groundwater contaminated with arsenic from coal power plant wastes were at risk of developing cancer. Ecosystems too have been damaged -- sometimes severely or permanently -- by the disposal of coal plant waste.

Cooling water discharge
Once the 2.2 billion gallons of water have cycled through the coal-fired power plant, they are released back into the lake, river, or ocean. This water is hotter (by up to 20-25° F) than the water that receives it. This "thermal pollution" can decrease fertility and increase heart rates in fish. Typically, power plants also add chlorine or other toxic chemicals to their cooling water to decrease algae growth. These chemicals are also discharged back into the environment.

Waste heat
Much of the heat produced from burning coal is wasted. A typical coal power plant uses only 33-35% of the coal's heat to produce electricity. The majority of the heat is released into the atmosphere or absorbed by the cooling water.

 

Environmental Impact:

Coal mining
About 60% of U.S. coal is stripped from the earth in surface mines; the rest comes from underground mines. Surface coal mining may dramatically alter the landscape. Coal companies throughout Appalachia often remove entire mountain tops to expose the coal below. The wastes are generally dumped in valleys and streams.

In West Virginia, more than 300,000 acres of hardwood forests (half the size of Rhode Island) and 1,000 miles of streams have been destroyed by this practice.

Underground mining is one of the most hazardous of occupations, killing and injuring many in accidents, and causing chronic health problems.

Coal transportation
A typical coal plant requires 40 railroad cars to supply 1.4 million tons in a year. That's 14,600 railroad cars a year.

Railroad locomotives, which rely on diesel fuel, emit nearly 1 million tons of nitrogen oxide (NOx) and 52,000 tons of coarse and small particles in the United States. Coal dust blowing from coal trains contributes particulate matter to the air.

Coal storage
Coal burned by power plants is typically stored onsite in uncovered piles. Dust blown from coal piles irritates the lungs and often settles on nearby houses and yards. Rainfall creates runoff from coal piles. This runoff contains pollutants that can contaminate land and water.

Water Use:

A typical 500-megawatt coal-fired power plant draws about 2.2 billion gallons of water each year from nearby water bodies, such as lakes, rivers, or oceans, to create steam for turning its turbines. This is enough water to support a city of approximately 250,000 people. 

When this water is drawn into the power plant, 21 million fish eggs, fish larvae, and juvenile fish may also come along with it -- and that's the average for a single species in just one year. In addition, EPA estimates that up to 1.5 million adult fish a year may become trapped against the intake structures. Many of these fish are injured or die in the process.

Some Coal Facts

From pro-coal industry website Fast Facts About Coal:

• Nine out of ten tons of coal in the U.S. are used to generate electricity.

• More than 2.3 million acres of mined land have been reclaimed over the past 25 years—that’s an area larger than the state of Delaware.

• The United States has about a 235-year supply of coal, if it continues using coal at the same rate at which it uses coal today.

• Montana is the state with the most coal reserves (119 billion tons). But Wyoming is the top coal-producing state—it produced over 400 million tons in 2010.

• Texas is the top coal-consuming state. It uses about 100 million tons each year.

• The average coal miner is 50 years old and has 20 years of experience.

• Coal ash, a byproduct of coal combustion, is used as filler for tennis rackets, golf balls, and linoleum.

• U.S. coal deposits contain more energy than that of all the world’s oil reserves.

I found a really good article about the coal industry on the website of the West Virginia Gazette:

Left out of the Daily Mail’s news coverage?

There was no mention of another recent report (also not really peer-reviewed) by the folks at Downstream Strategies and the West Virginia Center for Budget and Policy, which argued that coal actually costs the state government more money than it generates.

And neither of their stories mentioned the growing body of work coming out of West Virginia University (hardly an institution that is out to get the coal industry)  about how residents near coal mining operations generally and mountaintop removal sites specifically show poorer health than those who don’t leave near mining.

Good stuff.  Arguing about bad media coverage.   

What's interesting about Coal?

We watched part of a documentary about mountaintop removal, THE LAST MOUNTAIN.

Here's a link to the website to the movie.

I like this movie for a couple of reasons.  I'm going to skip my inclination to side with the filmmakers, because that's not something I can avoid or ignore.  I think that this movie does a good job of breaking the issue of mountaintop removal into manageable and understandable chunks - since I didn't understand it very well before this movie - and presents evidence or reasons for their position in relation to each of those parts.  For example, the movie points out that mountaintop removal is permitted partly because coal companies are required to return the mountain to its original state when they are finished removing the coal.  Then, they show a clip of a site after the coal company has allegedly returned the mountain to its original condition.  This becomes the logical beginning of a discussion about how coal companies manipulate the law to maximize profit.

There are some propaganda techniques evident in the film.  Clearly, some of the clips are intended to be heart-wrenching, sympathetic portrayals of union workers and protesters, and copious evidence of corporate wrongdoing.  But the film is unusually evidence-based, and I've seen other movies that present similar evidence against mountaintop removal.  They employ some breathtaking photography, lots of visual examples and contrast, and some rousing testimony from people on the "front lines."  I love that it's localized around one mountain (called Coal Mountain), and that the people around that mountain are the stars.

I think that this movie is on the leading edge of the current controversy around coal and "clean coal" technology.  I think that mountaintop removal is a horrible, destructive practice, and there is no question that coal companies are tearing apart wilderness for coal, and making false claims to defend their destructive actions.  These false claims are supported again and again by lobbyists, politicians, and the companies' employees.  It's a tragedy.

What's going to happen?

Cool Word: RIMPLE

It just means "wrinkle" or "fold."  It works as a noun or a verb.

Apparently, there's a Fijian actress named Rimple Sumer.

It's a moderately common name, apparently, in some part of India.  There are a lot of faces on the Google image search.

I like that it kind of feels "folded"; you can hear the sound of folding in the word a little.  Just a little.

Okay, so this word is really not that cool.  But maybe you didn't know it already?

Coal Mission

Sorry, I'm really enjoying the way these pictures look on the blog.  Here are some random pictures of coal:

I have to go to Home Depot today.  It's going to be my mission to find out where I can buy some coal.  I want to play with it.  I'd like to bring it in to my classroom and let my students see what it's like.