Intercontinental Hotel

[kennedy]

Off topic-ish, but does anyone know if the vent towers include carbon scrubbers? If not, why? And how expensive/difficult/effective would it be to add them?

 

[Boston02124]

today front and back

 

[SeamusMcFly]

I'm not sure if you meant to, but you named the sides in order of showing them, and it's funny that that is true. Even though the "back" (facing the Greenway) would I guess technically be the front since that is the main entrance and approach. The true front is facing the water, and is quite handsome. I'm still not a fan of the back, and strangely it's mostly because of the one half being concave and the other being convex. It just jars it too much.

Good pictures btw.

 

[Boston02124]

Your right the front to me is the side facing the Greenway, But I guess it could go either way!

 

[tobyjug]

Off topic-ish, but does anyone know if the vent towers include carbon scrubbers? If not, why? And how expensive/difficult/effective would it be to add them?

Calling Ned! Come in please! (He probably knows.)

 

[statler]

Somewhere in the other mess of a thread it was discussed, but damned if I'm going to dive into that cesspool to try to find it.

 

[tobyjug]

My recollection of Ned's take on it was that there were not scrubbers. But I admit I might be misremembering!

 

[Ned Flaherty]

. . . does anyone know if the vent towers include carbon scrubbers? If not, why? And how expensive/difficult/effective would it be to add them?

There are no filters, scrubbers, or equivalent at any of the 8 vent sites built to service the I-93 tunnels, because in the late 1980s the necessity hadn?t yet been recognized, as the public health risk was virtually unknown in most circles.

So far, no one has published a practical analysis of the costs vs. benefits of cleansing air before it leaves the I-93 or I-90 tunnels._ But on 14 November 2008 the Secretary of Energy & Environmental Affairs told the owners of the proposed Fenway Center that their Final Environmental Impact Report must (a) quantify the public health risks; and (b) mitigate those risks._ The owners have not said when they will finish those analyses.

. . . the air inside the tunnels is at least as clean if not cleaner than street-level downtown City of Boston air . . .

No, it isn?t._ It was thought so, by late 1980s standards, when the Big Dig was designed._ But two decades later, the conclusions are different.

Generally, both inside and outside the tunnels, air along major rail/road corridors poses a far greater public health risk than was presumed in the late 1980s._ Since that time, particulate matter (coarse, fine, and especially ultrafine) has been linked to significant increases in the rates of birth defects, incurable illness (lung disease, heart disease, cancer), and premature mortality._ Both the I-93 and the I-90 corridors are abundant with this particulate matter air pollution.

Addressing the problem along the Big Dig is harder than along the Turnpike, because the I-93 corridor is already finished, whereas the I-90 railways and roadways run under air rights sites that are still mostly undeveloped.

 

[kennedy]

No way man, not here too!

 

[tobyjug]

Now, now, my young friend. Haven't you ever stood near one of these stacks (never mind lived near one) and wondered what was coming out of it?

 

[KentXie]

No way man, not here too!

He was told to come here. Anyways, his contribution here is better than the ones in CC and I encourage Ned to start looking at other threads.

 

[briv]

He was told to come here. Anyways, his contribution here is better than the ones in CC and I encourage Ned to start looking at other threads.

Seconded.

 

[Patriots_1228]

how is the stuff coming out of the tunnels any different than what comes out of a car above ground?

 

[tobyjug]

how is the stuff coming out of the tunnels any different than what comes out of a car above ground?

I am no expert, so I'm just guessing. My guess is that qualitatively, it isn't different. But the dispersion area is more focused, so that the localized impact of the vent plume is deleterious, as compared to a more generalized dispersion from ordinary passing traffic.

 

[SeamusMcFly]

Deleterious? Have you been reading your OSHA handbook? That's the only other time I have seen that word.

I'm also not an expert, but since they built the vent stacks to divert the dirty air from the tunnels, and they obviously made them as tall as they did for some reason. Wouldn't that reason be that at that height the exhaust would be diverted from where people breathe, and to also allow for the exhaust air to become dilluted with the outside "fresh" air, so as not to cause problems.

I'm all about cleaning up the air and air pollution, but those same cars are causing the same damage to the air when they are not in the tunnel. So the only real purpose of the height of the stacks would be to protect the people (and the greenery) on street level. Otherwise we would just have grates on the sidewalks.

The only "real" way to take care of this, would be to have everyone driving zero emissions cars. Which compared to the late 1980's that are mentioned above, our cars are much more enviro-friendly. As has been mentioned earlier, the bigger problem is the diesel exhaust belching semi's, and diesel trains as well which I guess would be covered with the pike.

 

[stellarfun]

There are no filters, scrubbers, or equivalent at any of the 8 vent sites built to service the I-93 tunnels, because in the late 1980s the necessity hadn?t yet been recognized, as the public health risk was virtually unknown in most circles.

So far, no one has published a practical analysis of the costs vs. benefits of cleansing air before it leaves the I-93 or I-90 tunnels._ But on 14 November 2008 the Secretary of Energy & Environmental Affairs told the owners of the proposed Fenway Center that their Final Environmental Impact Report must (a) quantify the public health risks; and (b) mitigate those risks._ The owners have not said when they will finish those analyses.



No, it isn?t._ It was thought so, by late 1980s standards, when the Big Dig was designed._ But two decades later, the conclusions are different.

Generally, both inside and outside the tunnels, air along major rail/road corridors poses a far greater public health risk than was presumed in the late 1980s._ Since that time, particulate matter (coarse, fine, and especially ultrafine) has been linked to significant increases in the rates of birth defects, incurable illness (lung disease, heart disease, cancer), and premature mortality._ Both the I-93 and the I-90 corridors are abundant with this particulate matter air pollution.

Addressing the problem along the Big Dig is harder than along the Turnpike, because the I-93 corridor is already finished, whereas the I-90 railways and roadways run under air rights sites that are still mostly undeveloped.

Of all of Ned Flaherty's b.s. posts, this is perhaps the ultimate (so far): oblivious to science, ignorant of engineering, dumb as to regulation.

The public health risk of mobile source emissions (those from motor vehicles) was well known 40 years ago, which was why emission controls began to be Federally regulated under the Clean Air Act.

Ned's fetish for UFPs colors his view of other pollutants that are emitted by cars and trucks. If one abates fine particulates from diesel engines, one also abates UFPs. The effort to further abate fine particulates from diesels will result in a further reduction of UFPs. Air pollution has always been addressed by controls on the source(s), not by scrubbing or filtering the ambient air.

The amount of pollution emanating from cars, trucks, buses in the Big Dig tunnels, or from the old Central Artery that preceded the tunnels, is generally a function of: number of vehicles, emissions per vehicle, and the time it takes a vehicle to travel through a tunnel or along the old Artery.

There is probably less pollution being emitted by cars and trucks today traveling through the tunnels than there was from a similar number of cars trucks traveling along the Artery. The reason being a slow engine, or an idling engine, emits much more pollution than an engine running at efficient RPMs. So stop and go traffic, or idling traffic is a substantially bigger source of pollution than if the same traffic was proceeding at speed.

To scrub ambient air, whether using dry or wet scrubbers, is expensive, prohibitively so. Aside from the massive structures that would be needed, you would probably create more pollution from generating the power to operate the scrubbers than the scrubbers would remove from the air passing through the vent buildings.

If one really wanted to improve the air around Clarendon St., one ought to crusade for the MBTA to buy electro-diesel locomotives, which can run on either electric power (the overhead catenary at Back Bay) or by diesel. IMO, that would reduce the pollution (coarse, fine and ultra fine particulates) in that area significantly.

 

[bbfen]

There is probably less pollution being emitted by cars and trucks today traveling through the tunnels than there was from a similar number of cars trucks traveling along the Artery. The reason being a slow engine, or an idling engine, emits much more pollution than an engine running at efficient RPMs. So stop and go traffic, or idling traffic is a substantially bigger source of pollution than if the same traffic was proceeding at speed.

In my former apartment, I overlooked the Mass Pike, and worked from home a portion of the time. I'm not wading too far into fine particulate matter, but will say that for measurable chunks of the day, at least one direction is stop/slow traffic. I don't want anyone unfamiliar with the road to be misled into thinking it's 65mph traffic 24/7.

 

[Ned Flaherty]

. . . To scrub ambient air, whether using dry or wet scrubbers . . . you would probably create more pollution from generating the power to operate the scrubbers than the scrubbers would remove from the air passing through the vent buildings. . .

No._ This is not categorically true, for 3 reasons.

Firstly, comparing two pollution sources to simplistically decide which one produces ?more pollution? or ?less pollution? is valid only when the pollution types are identical, which is not the case when the two sources are mobile engines stationary power plants.

Secondly, even if both the mobile sources and the stationary sources were identical polluter types, and even if figures suggested a net increase in the quantity of pollution itself after considering both air cleansed via tunnel vents and air polluted via generators, cleansing still has an overall benefit when the tunnels are in a higher-density population area and the generators are in a lower-density area, especially after the results are adjusted by federal calculations for lost wages, increased health care, and early mortality.

Thirdly, although the technology exists, no one has built or even designed a customized, tunnel-based scrubbing system of the type that would be used over I-93 and I-90._ Neither the inefficiencies of scale nor the economies of scale are quantified yet, so it is impossible to make any ?net increase/decrease? argument at this time.

Bottom line:_ No one can categorically say ? yet ? whether scrubbing results in a net increase or decrease in pollution, and each scrubbing application has to be designed and cost-benefit analyzed individually._ The owners of the Fenway Center air rights proposal have been working on such an analysis since the state ordered it on 14 November 2008._ Their Final Environmental Impact Report was originally due in spring 2009, but now is delayed indefinitely._ Whenever it is published, it should be informative, because the Secretary of Environment said he will require additional analyses in the event it is not informative.

 

[bbfen]

even if both the mobile sources and the stationary sources were identical polluter types...cleansing still has an overall benefit when the tunnels are in a higher-density population area and the generators are in a lower-density area

no one has built or even designed a customized, tunnel-based scrubbing system of the type that would be used over I-93 and I-90.

I'm not being personal here, I'm actually fairly disinterested in this crusade (maybe I shouldn't be, since I live within spitting distance of the masspike). But this is what I got from your post. Spun differently:

You want something that doesn't exist be installed, and it doesn't matter if there's pollution in a lower-density (read:lower income) area because more people in higher density neighborhood will have cleaner air? I mean, that's simplifies it, but that's it.

I admire what I think is your end goal----cleaner air----but the message is diluted by your tactics, rhetoric and zealotry.

 

[kennedy]

I admire what I think is your end goal----cleaner air----but the message is diluted by your tactics, rhetoric and zealotry.

"