A Snow and ski forum. SkiBanter

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » SkiBanter forum » Skiing Newsgroups » Alpine Skiing
Site Map Home Register Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

Interesting article on ski resorts, global warming, and environmentalism



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old January 26th 07, 04:45 PM posted to rec.skiing.snowboard,rec.skiing.alpine,rec.skiing.resorts.north-america
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 115
Default Interesting article on ski resorts, global warming, and environmentalism

An article in the online magazine Salon discusses the ski industry's
response to global warming and other environmental challenges. Here are
two interesting excerpts:

"Global warming predictions vary, but it's clear to all but climate
change skeptics that if current trends persist, most of the world's ski
resorts may not survive the next 100 years. ...
But on top of struggling with warmer weather this winter, studies
reflect that in the past 50 years the East Coast has seen a 15 percent
decrease in snowfall. New research on California's Sierra Nevada range,
meanwhile, indicates that if spring temperatures rise by a mere 5
degrees on average, and scientists say they've gained more than 2
degrees since 1950, the Golden State may lose 89 percent of its natural
snow pack. Aspen and Park City, Utah, have sponsored their own studies
that show winter shrinking by about three weeks over the next 50 years,
and this too has got them worried."

* * *

"Rather than embrace ethical business models favored by
conservationists, many resorts have become fixated on terrain
expansion, carving new runs, installing new chairlifts and upgrading
snow-making capacity. As a result, wildlife suffers, forests get
logged, and despite vows of energy conservation, electricity bills
continue to soar. Beaver Creek in Colorado, also owned by Vail, even
has heated sidewalks. Consequently, resorts demand higher prices for
lift tickets, while trying to entice more out-of-state and
international skiers to fly in, pushing second-home sales and
real-estate schemes whenever possible; in fact, a scan of resort Web
sites reveals that real-estate shares billing with environmental
education and skier safety campaigns."

Worth a read in its entirety:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/01/26/skiing/

Joe Ramirez

Ads
  #2  
Old January 26th 07, 04:57 PM posted to rec.skiing.snowboard,rec.skiing.alpine,rec.skiing.resorts.north-america
VtSkier
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,233
Default Yean, but... (was: Interesting article on ski resorts, globalwarming, and environmentalism)

wrote:
An article in the online magazine Salon discusses the ski industry's


And here is another article which says some area operators are truly
concerned about global warming and reliance on petroleum products and
are doing something about it.

Begin quoted article:

Ski resorts hop onto the trail of environmentalism

By Peter J. Howe, Boston Globe Staff | January 26, 2007

LUDLOW, Vt. -- Ski resorts often like to boast about how much white snow
they have. Now they're also talking about how "green" it is.

This winter, the Okemo Mountain resort here became the first New England
ski resort to get all of its electricity from wind turbines, including
the power used to run its arsenal of 1,000 snow-making guns. Okemo has
also just doubled the size of the reservoir that feeds its snow guns,
which allows it to draw water from the Black River only when the river
is high enough that fish and aquatic animals are not jeopardized.

Across New England, Okemo has plenty of company in the effort to make
ski resorts more environmentally friendly after years of criticism from
environmental groups that the skiing industry damaged fragile
high-elevation ecology. That includes everything from huge power and
water consumption of snowmaking gear, to sprawling condominium
development and sewage generation, to disruption of wild bear habitats.

Maine's Sugarloaf/USA and Sunday River matched Okemo by going 100
percent wind-powered in November. Sugarbush Mountain in Warren, Vt., has
switched to plant-produced biodiesel fuel for its eight snow-grooming
tractors. Vermont's Smugglers Notch in November began offering ski lift
discounts that rewarded carpooling, which it says has saved 110,000
gallons of gas.

Closer to Boston, Wachusett Mountain in Princeton -- a pioneer in
recycling waste heat from its snowmakers to warm the base lodge -- began
offering a "Ski Train" promotion this winter, a shuttle bus from the
Fitchburg commuter rail stop to encourage visiting skiers to use mass
transit.

Ski resort owners acknowledge they believe heightened environmentalism
-- which they're eager to feature in their marketing -- generates good
publicity and sales. But with a wide scientific consensus that this
winter's weeks of warm, snowless weather are yet another manifestation
of global climate change, many owners have become true believers, and
out of more than a little self-interest.

"If there's any industry that's going to be affected by climate change,
it's ours," said Wachusett president Jeff Crowley . "We're the first."

J.J. Tolland , Sugarbush spokesman, agreed: "This starts right at home.
We'll do everything we can to preserve winter."

Last year Okemo co-owners Timothy Mueller and his wife, Diane, decided
to take a clear step toward offsetting their resort's air pollution by
switching to wind power for all the electricity at Okemo, and the two
other resorts they operate, Mount Sunapee in New Hampshire and Crested
Butte in Colorado.

But no source in New England could supply the typically $3 million worth
of power Okemo alone uses each winter. But the Muellers found an energy
company that would, with an undisclosed premium, sell them 29 million
kilowatt-hours of electricity for the three resorts. That's equal to
what 4,800 average-sized homes use in an entire year.

By paying for turbines in Colorado and High Plains states to feed into
the national power grid the same amount the Muellers' resorts draw from
conventional sources like coal, nuclear power, and gas- and oil-fired
plants, they can now say they run on the equivalent of 100 percent wind
power.

As winters have grown milder and natural snowfall has declined or become
less reliable, artificial snowmaking has become more crucial to New
England resorts, increasing pressure on the water supply and emissions
from engines that power snow guns.

Okemo, for example, has already, just about halfway through its season,
used more than 320 million gallons of water, enough to cover each of its
550 acres of trails with over three feet of snow. Okemo is on pace to
use well over its usual annual 500 million gallons, said Barry Tucker,
vice president of mountain operations.

When snowmaking conditions are perfect -- temperatures in the teens,
with optimal humidity -- Okemo's snowmaking system can drain the
equivalent of a tractor-trailer tanker of water every 49 seconds. It
also requires industrial diesel engines to generate the compressed air
that blasts water into tiny droplets and helps them freeze into snowflakes.

One leading Vermont environmental watchdog, Christopher Kilian , vice
president of the Conservation Law Foundation and director of its Vermont
advocacy center, says with the way Okemo and other ski mountains devour
energy, water, and land, they have a moral obligation to manage their
impact.

"In general, it is impressive that the industry is committing as much
energy and capital as it is to improving their environmental footprint,"
Kilian said. Referring to the commitment to use wind-generated
electricity, Kilian said, "The Okemo deal is a big deal. It's setting a
bar for the whole industry."

It also appears to be generating some goodwill among customers. Jeremiah
Johnson , 27, from Mount Holly, Vt., who has been skiing winters at
Okemo for 20 years, said, "Whatever helps for the environment, that's
great. Having it all be natural-powered, I'd say that's great."

Barry Stoner , from Glastonbury, Conn. , said he hadn't known about
Okemo's use of wind power but said he liked the proenvironment statement
it makes.

"I could tolerate a windmill much more than I can tolerate one of these
cellphone towers. They look like junk," Stoner added.

While wind power typically is more expensive than regular electricity,
many resorts say that being green has improved their bottom lines, given
that energy for snowmaking is typically their second-biggest operating
expense after salaries. More efficient snow-machine nozzles at
Sugarbush, for example, saved 90,000 gallons of diesel fuel last winter.

The Killington resort, up the highway from Okemo in Vermont, boasts it
has the largest snowmaking system in the world, 88 miles of water pipes
feeding 1,435 snow guns that cover 752 acres.

Killington spokesman Tom Horrocks said the resort is six years through a
seven-year overhaul of its snowmaking systems that will reduce its
greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent, and also take a big bite out of
its typically $5 million annual energy bill.

That includes replacing hundreds of snowmaking guns with models that use
up to 75 percent less energy. With diesel fuel now often running $2.40 a
gallon, quadruple what it cost in the late 1990s, Killington's efforts
to cut energy use are also producing tens of thousands of dollars in
savings.

"It's not just the environmental aspects," Horrocks said. "It's the
economic aspects. It is really helping the business to be so much more
efficient."

  #3  
Old January 26th 07, 09:22 PM posted to rec.skiing.snowboard,rec.skiing.alpine,rec.skiing.resorts.north-america
lal_truckee
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,348
Default Yean, but...

VtSkier wrote:
This winter, the Okemo Mountain resort here became the first New England
ski resort to get all of its electricity from wind turbines, including
the power used to run its arsenal of 1,000 snow-making guns.


Everybody is hustling to claim green power (including the local) but
it's all bull****. They're not building new wind farms; they're
"transferring" power from utilities that already have wind farm sources
and would sale that power into the market anyway. It's a shell game
played because of a perceived greenish patron base who will be (easily)
impressed. They have ridges with wind, they have ponds, they could build
their own wind farms and use pumped storage hydro power for calm days
and really make an impact (primarily an impact on the beauty of their
wilderness ridges, but what the hey!)
  #4  
Old January 26th 07, 10:40 PM posted to rec.skiing.alpine
Jay Pique
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 220
Default Yean, but...



On Jan 26, 4:22 pm, lal_truckee wrote:
Everybody is hustling to claim green power (including the local) but
it's all bull****. They're not building new wind farms; they're
"transferring" power from utilities that already have wind farm sources
and would sale that power into the market anyway. It's a shell game
played because of a perceived greenish patron base who will be (easily)
impressed. They have ridges with wind, they have ponds, they could build
their own wind farms and use pumped storage hydro power for calm days
and really make an impact (primarily an impact on the beauty of their
wilderness ridges, but what the hey!)


Huh. I'm not really up to speed on the business of power gen and
delivery, but maybe I should be. My company says it uses only wind
power. What does that mean? I never really thought about it. Don't
have time now, but I'll hypothesize when I get back, and then you can
start in with the flames, politics etc...
JP
***********************
We also burn our scrap for heat.

  #5  
Old January 28th 07, 12:22 AM posted to rec.skiing.alpine
VtSkier
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,233
Default Yean, but...

Jay Pique wrote:

On Jan 26, 4:22 pm, lal_truckee wrote:
Everybody is hustling to claim green power (including the local) but
it's all bull****. They're not building new wind farms; they're
"transferring" power from utilities that already have wind farm sources
and would sale that power into the market anyway. It's a shell game
played because of a perceived greenish patron base who will be (easily)
impressed. They have ridges with wind, they have ponds, they could build
their own wind farms and use pumped storage hydro power for calm days
and really make an impact (primarily an impact on the beauty of their
wilderness ridges, but what the hey!)


Huh. I'm not really up to speed on the business of power gen and
delivery, but maybe I should be. My company says it uses only wind
power. What does that mean? I never really thought about it. Don't
have time now, but I'll hypothesize when I get back, and then you can
start in with the flames, politics etc...
JP
***********************
We also burn our scrap for heat.


Uh, Jay, aren't you near the large wind farm on Tug Hill Plateau?
Could it be that your company really is only using wind gen power?
Unlike Okemo and others whom LAL correctly points out are simply
playing a shell game.
 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Interesting article on ski resorts, global warming, and environmentalism [email protected] Snowboarding 2 January 26th 07 09:22 PM
Interesting article on ski resorts, global warming, and environmentalism [email protected] North American Ski Resorts 2 January 26th 07 09:22 PM


All times are GMT. The time now is 02:02 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 SkiBanter.
The comments are property of their posters.