Word: winded
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...that Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and the state legislature managed to pass mandatory building codes this year. Most states already have such codes. Florida has had a strict one in place since 2001, and structures built under it tend to be the ones left standing after a 120 m.p.h. wind rips through. We know that for every dollar spent on that kind of basic mitigation, society saves an average of $4, according to a 2005 report by the nonprofit National Institute of Building Sciences. Then there's Mississippi, which, believe it or not, still has no statewide building code. Katrina...
...fact, 91% of Americans live in places at a moderate-to-high risk of earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes, wildfires, hurricanes, flooding, high-wind damage or terrorism, according to an estimate calculated for TIME by the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute at the University of South Carolina. But Americans have a tendency to be die-hard optimists, literally. It is part of what makes the country great--and vincible. "There are four stages of denial," says Eric Holdeman, director of emergency management for Seattle's King County, which faces a significant earthquake threat. "One is, it won't happen...
...sounds simple enough, right? Not quite. In order to understand such environmental ambition, it's important to realize how energy is distributed. Every energy producer - whether coal, nuclear or wind - gets paid a flat rate to produce electricity, all of which is dumped into a central national power grid and distributed through different energy providers throughout the country. Making a single megawatt-hour of electricity from wind, however, is more expensive than one from fossil fuel. So wind farmers sell credits, which are priced to cover the difference in cost and allow them to stay in business. By purchasing these...
...Buying wind, it seems, is a complicated venture. Last week the Colorado ski and recreation company Vail Resorts Inc. announced it would purchase 100% of its energy use - roughly 152,000 megawatt-hours a year - from wind farms. But that doesn't mean Vail is dumping its old energy providers. Instead it has purchased "wind power credits" from a Boulder-based company called Renewable Choice Energy, which in turn pays wind farms throughout the country to produce electricity - enough to offset 211 million lbs. of carbon dioxide emissions each year. This purchase makes Vail the second-largest buyer of wind...
...apple." But, he reminds, "it's not double. They're just paying the difference." Vail won't disclose the added cost to their energy bill, but to put it in perspective, an average household would have to pay roughly $15 extra per month to replace their energy consumption with wind. For a company that operates resorts in Colorado, California, Nevada, and Wyoming in addition to 125 retail stores nationwide, the difference...