Monday Week Nine

...some questions...

1. What is the discharge of the Maury River at Jordans Point Park? What about now?

2. What is a human development index score? What is factors are considered in calculating HDI? Are these an effective measure of human development? What is the relationship between HDI and per capita energy consumption resolved at the nation-state level?  Why is it important the specific shape of this relationship important? Why is the position of a nation-state in HDI- energy consumption space important when weighing the costs and benefits of a project that would add generation capacity?

3. What is special about the Three Gorges Dam? hint 1: What is special about its generation capacity? hint 2: What is special about the difference between its generation capacity and the actual annual amount of energy that is generated? hint 3: How many people were displaced as a result of this project?

4. Where is the Quabbin Reservoir? What is the purpose of the dam (in this case, the Windsor Dam and the Goodnough Dike) and reservoir? What are the costs and benefits of the reservoir? What are the specific costs that are communicated by Jane Yollen in her book, Letting Swift River Go?

Slides from today are on Sakai. You may arrange to borrow Letting Swift from me but only if you promise to read it to a child who should be learning about large-scale grave exhumations anyway.