Other Issues
Last modified: 12th August 2019
Below are a list of articles that don’t easily fit any of these categories.
This article discusses the issues associated with the perpetual storage of things like nuclear waste, coal combustion wastes, and mine tailings.
Non-Renewable Energy in Alaska
This article summarizes some basic information on non-renewable energy sources in Alaska
Resource Extraction on the North Pacific Coast
This article was researched and written in 2007 as part of the preparation for our year-long Journey on the Wild Coast. One of the goals of this trip was to see many of these issues for ourselves, and to weave them together into a narrative aimed at understanding natural resource issues facing the Northern Pacific Coast. Some of the text and links have been updated with more recent information.
The subsistence harvest of wild resources is important to the livelihood and culture of many Alaskans, both Native and non-Native.
During the 1980’s Alaska Native Corporations (ANCs) were allowed to sell their “net operating losses” to other corporations as a tax shelter. The two major consequences of this were over $400 million in income for struggling ANCs and the otherwise uneconomical depletion of natural resources, particularly timber.
Here we discuss the meaning of the term “True Cost” and the factors that make up the difference between the market price of a commodity and the comprehensive cost of that commodity to society.
True Cost of Electricity Generation
Subsidies and externalities are not included in the sticker price of electricity. Here we discuss calculations of both, and how they affect our view of clean versus cheap sources of electricity.
Introduction to dam collapses, ruptures, and breaches. Dams are remarkably useful inventions. When they fail, it can be a major disaster in the human, economic, and environmental dimensions. Dam failure is a significant global industrial-accident issue.
Big Dams and Bad Choices: Two Case Studies in Human Factors and Dam Failure
Flawed decision-making often plays a major role in industrial accidents. Very few peope set out to make “bad choices”, but assumptions, bad data, mental biases, political pressures, and other forces sometimes sway us towards choices that lead to disaster. This article examines two famous dam failures, in which key human choices played a major role.
Created: Jan. 19, 2018