Power Plant Facts

Source: Paul Roselli

   

Let's put the water use and the number of trucks into perspective. Remember, this is an industrial sized fracked gas power plant proposed to be built in the middle of the woods in northwestern Rhode Island. Under the "new" water plan submitted to the Rhode Island Energy Facility Siting Board there will be a 2,250,000 gallons of water storage tank on site. To fill the water tank you need water trucks the size of a water truck that fills backyard swimming pools. Each water truck holds about 8000 gallons of water. If you divide 2,250,000 by 8,000 you get 281 trucks OR 562 trips. That is just for water. The 2,000,000 gallons of diesel oil takes 250 trucks if each truck holds 8000 gallons of oil. That is an additional 500 trips for a total of 1062 trips. Remember, 2,250,000 gallons of water and 2,000,000 is used within 72 hours of continuous operation if one turbine burns oil and one turbine burns gas. Table 2.1 page 12 of the Water Supply Plan submitted to the EFSB states that the summer water use will be around 15,840 gallons of water. But if you read the footnote at the bottom on that same table, an additional 4.600 gallons per hour could be used. 4,600 per hour is 110,400 gallons per day on top of the 15,840 for a total of 126,240. And that number is conservative. By any stretch of any one's collective imagination, there will be hundreds of truck trips per day if that power plant is permitted to operate.