Earlier this week...
It's tempting to present the flattening of Oregon's unemployment rate--at 11.3 percent in October--as good news. But economists, dismal scientists to the core, paint a negative picture.
First, October's number--the same seasonally adjusted 11.3 percent as September's revised rate--remains stubbornly higher than the nation's towering 10.2 percent level.
Second, Oregon's jobless rate hasn't fallen from its 12.2 percent May high because employers have embarked on a hiring spree. On the contrary the state lost another 1,900 jobs in October, officials said Monday, following a revised loss of 6,000 in September.
Instead what appears to be happening is that many job hunters--retirees and nonworking spouses who dusted off resumes as the financial sector imploded and stocks plunged--are leaving the hunt. Their disappearance from the ranks of the officially unemployed lowers the jobless rate, said David Cooke, a state labor economist.
Considering that Kulongoski claims he's a "jobs Democrat" (previous blog here), guess we shouldn't be surprised by the following reaction to that data.
Oregon's recession is over. Or nearly over, state economist Tom Potiowsky declared Thursday.
While there's no state agency that officially designates Oregon either as in or out of recession, Potiowsky told state lawmakers "we have enough indicators that technically the recession has ended in Oregon or is about to."
Don't get too excited. Potiowsky also described the state's economy as "bouncing along the bottom." And it's likely to do that for a while.
Oregon economists are sticking with predictions of a "jobless recovery."
"Jobless recovery" is a noxious oxymoron.
By the way, if Potiowsky sounds familiar, he's the guy whose "accurate" economic forecasts have allowed Oregonians to receive several large kicker checks (previous blog here).
An increasing number of people are concerned that paying developing nations not to cut down their forests does nothing to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases. Here's a great example.
An agreement by Norway to pay Guyana for preserving forests to help slow climate change will still allow the South American nation to increase its rate of deforestation, Guyana's President Bharrat Jagdeo said.
Norway could pay Guyana up to $250 million by 2015, in a possible forerunner of a global scheme where rich nations pay the developing world to preserve rainforests.
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The memorandum, signed last week, states that Norway will compensate Guyana if it does not cut down more than 0.45 percent of its forests per year. But Guyana is felling far fewer trees than that at present.
Guyana is an impoverished nation on the steamy NE coast of South America. The article claims that Guyana has some of the world's "best preserved" tropical forests, but that implies active management was influential in the result. Not. The biggest reasons are that it's remote, sparsely populated, and has little infrastructure inland. It's a country the size of Idaho (5/6 the size of Oregon) with just 770,000 people--90 percent of them living along the coast.
Jagdeo said that Guyana's current rate was uncertain but likely between 0.1 percent and 0.3 percent.
"We are going to do some detailed work between now and October 2010 when we will know what that figure is ... That may cause some adjustment," he told a briefing.
The maximum of 0.45 percent is a middle point between Guyana's estimated deforestation rate of 0.3 percent and the average rate of 0.6 percent for countries with tropical forests.
Norway is so flush with oil money that it can simply give away a quarter of a billion dollars for the sake of climate PR. That reminds me...President Obama will travel to Norway next month to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize.
The Committee recognized Obama's change of the US climate policy, saying that "thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting."
If he was truly concerned about climate change, he wouldn't waste the emissions flying to Norway.
Here's the latest deportation data from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The data, from October 1, 2008 to September 30, 2009, shows that 10,793 people were deported from the Pacific Northwest, a drop of 117 compared to the previous year.
That marks the first time in the last five years that deportations from the Northwest have dropped. Deportations had increased from more than 4,000 in 2005 to nearly 11,000 in 2008.
But removals of people with criminal records went from more than 3,100 to nearly 4,500 between 2008 and 2009 — a jump of 39.7 percent. Since 2005, criminal removals have more than doubled.
The data "illustrates pretty vividly the priority we're placing on the removal of criminal aliens," ICE spokeswoman Lorie Dankers said. "We believe it's the best way to enhance public safety."
Overall deportations in the Pacific Northwest (Alaska, Oregon, and Washington) sure bucked the national trend for some reason.
Nationwide, deportations jumped to more than 387,000 in the same period — an increase of 65 percent over the previous year.
But when it comes to the deportation of criminals...
Federal authorities have identified more than 111,000 immigrants with criminal records being held in local jails, during the first year of a program that seeks to deport immigrants who have committed serious crimes.
Among the immigrants identified through the program, known as Secure Communities, more than 11,000 had been charged with or convicted of the most serious crimes, including murder and rape, domestic security officials said Thursday. About 1,900 of those have been deported.
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About 100,000 of the detained immigrants identified through the system had been convicted of less serious crimes, ranging from burglary to traffic offenses, the officials said. Of those, more than 14,000 have been deported.
Can't find the statistic for how many of the 4,000 plus criminals who were deported from the Pacific Northwest were in jail for the most serious crimes. Nonetheless, more than a quarter of the criminals deported from the U.S. this past fiscal year were from prisons in this region.
It's been obvious for years now that Oregon's Business Energy Tax Credit is a money pit. Finally, the scandal is getting some legs.
In a letter to two state agency heads, Kulongoski asked for recommendations on whether the increasingly expensive Business Energy Tax Credit "is necessary for continued economic opportunity in renewable energy and, more specifically, wind energy."
He said he wants the recommendations in his hands by the end of the month -- an unusually rapid turnaround for such studies. Lawmakers had been gearing up to reduce the tax credits when the Legislature meets in February.
The governor's request comes on the heels of an investigation by The Oregonian that revealed state officials downplayed the estimated cost of the incentives before they were expanded by the 2007 Legislature at Kulongoski's urging. It also comes as the newspaper is preparing to publish an investigation into the relationship between the tax credits and the wind energy industry in Oregon.
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Since 2007, the cost of the energy tax credits has increased from about $10 million a year to an estimated $167 million for the 2009-11 biennium. Estimates for 2011-13 approach a quarter-billion dollars.
Regardless the lies regarding the anticipated cost of the tax credit, it's appalling that any of our legislators would ever vote for a subsidy without setting an upper limit. There are only two possible excuses--incompetence and intent. Governor Kulongoski, an avowed climate catastrophist (previous blog here), clearly wanted to spend as much as possible on the program...jobs were a secondary consideration at best. Once the construction is done, it doesn't take many people to maintain and run a wind farm.
And never mind the fact that millions were invested in wildly-speculative projects that are now mired in bankruptcy. Of course, that's small change compared to the dangerously high-risk PERS investments that have tanked and cost the state billions. Oh for a governor with some business acumen...Kulongoski has done a frightening job of helping to drive this state financially into the ground.
"We're already clearly on record that there are issues that need to be dealt with," said Geoff Sugarman, spokesman for House Speaker Dave Hunt, D-Gladstone. "We are committed to fixing the issues."
Hunt is one of the many irresponsible legislators who voted for the uncapped tax credit. Finally this year, he belatedly helped pass a bill (pushed by Sen. Ginny Burdick, D-Portland) that would have set a still-excessive limit of $120 million...which Kulongoski then got away with vetoing in August. Yep, they're clearly on record.
Warning, hold your watch up...
In his letter to Mark Long, head of the Oregon Department of Energy, and Tim McCabe, director of the Oregon Business Development Department, Kulongoski said recent changes in the economy and energy policies elsewhere should be factored into the review of the incentives.
"Our economy has begun to stabilize," he said. Furthermore, neighboring Washington has begun a phase-out of tax breaks for wind companies, and California has upped its requirements for renewable energy, which makes electricity produced by windmills all the more valuable.
- Our economy has begun to stabilize at an unacceptable level...maybe it's finally time consider spending our tax dollars in ways that would help create more jobs than do energy tax credits.
- Oregon's a leader...let's do what Washington is doing.
- We'll just ignore the fact that California's utilities sign long-term contracts for wind energy. Thus, it will be years until those wind farms can try to raise prices.
And remember that gubernatorial hopeful Bill Bradbury is another climate catastrophist.
It simply amazes me that anyone could write an article on this topic and avoid the elephant in the room.
Officials [from the Oregon Employment Department] predict economic growth will add 160,300 jobs in the state from 2008 to 2018, plus about 85,000 jobs opening as Oregon digs out of the current slump. Another 430,000 jobs will become available during the decade as workers quit or retire, the economists expect.
Any forecast of job growth is welcome during a recession. But the predicted 9 percent gain on Oregon's base of 1,765,900 jobs is slightly less than the increase seen from 1998 to 2008 -- and much slower than in many prior 10-year periods.
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Such long-term predictions can be dicey, and economists acknowledge their shortcomings. For example, Beleiciks can't predict the state's long-term unemployment rate, which averages 6 percent historically and sits at 11.3 percent as of September and October.
In 17 paragraphs, where was not one mention of the anticipated population growth over the next decade. The Oregon Office of Economic Analysis produces two population forecasts, a near-term one through 2015, and a longer-term with estimates every five years through 2040. Both show Oregon's population growing by an average of over 1 percent a year. If Oregon's jobs only grow 9 percent over a decade, unemployment will rise.
"Health care is supposed to be the fastest-growing industry and the one to add the most jobs," said Nick Beleiciks, the employment department economist who coordinated the study. "We have an aging population, so we'll have more need for health care in the future."
The 10-year projection shows a state transforming from production to services. While retail trade and professional and business services add jobs, manufacturing -- both traditional and high-tech -- decline.
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Oregon will lose federal jobs, the report predicts, as the Umatilla Chemical Weapons Depot closes after cleanup and the U.S. Postal Service cuts back. State government employment will grow, as will local government especially, with gains in education hiring.
What's going to pay for that growth in state and local government?
Governments at the state and federal level make huge sums by taxing addictions. Oregon's legislature is so addicted to those revenue streams that there's a constant battle to boost sin taxes, yet squeeze the revenue dedicated to prevention and treatment programs.
Over the weekend, The Oregonian highlighted some rather impressive numbers regarding who generates how much of the lottery revenue.
More than half the money the lottery collects from video gambling -- about $375 million last year -- comes from a small number of Oregonians, many with big gambling problems.
These gamblers tell the lottery they lose more than $500 a month, every month. They represent only 10 percent of Oregon's video gamblers but account for 53 percent of the money lost, according an analysis of three years' worth of the lottery's data obtained by The Oregonian under the state's public records law.
And then we were offered this absolutely ridiculous excuse.
"People in the Legislature have no idea about these numbers and the damage that is done to people's lives," says Rep. Carolyn Tomei, D-Milwaukie. "It's a message that frankly wouldn't be welcomed in the Legislature right now, because we've become so dependent on the lottery's money."
It must have been her week to be the designated liar. The leadership in Salem knows...and chooses to not to rank the issue very highly.
The lottery is a leading player in statewide campaigns to discourage problem gambling, and 1 percent of lottery profits cover all costs for all gamblers seeking state-funded treatment.
"We understand there is a portion of our players that have a problem with gambling," says Carole Hardy, the lottery's assistant director for marketing. "We try to educate them and their loved ones about what's available to help them."
But the lottery doesn't know how many of its players fit the profile of problem gamblers even though officials acknowledge there are ways to gauge that number. Despite spending tens of thousands a year to learn the habits of their customers, lottery officials don't ask the question.
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State officials say there are about 74,000 problem gamblers in Oregon. To get that number, researchers ask questions such as: Are you borrowing money, lying, not paying bills, or losing time at work or home -- all to keep gambling?
And that number is obviously low, as many gamblers are in denial and can't answer those questions honestly.
About $11 million in lottery profits will go to problem-gambling treatment and prevention programs over the next two years. The lottery spends an additional $1.5 million a year on advertising to discourage problem gambling. Every video gambling machine has a sticker that tells people how to reach the state's hotline, 1-877-MYLIMIT.
The problem is that those ads are like the anti-smoking campaigns designed by cigarette companies...they know what doesn't work.
Green But Not Authentic: Years ago, I had a boss who talked about knowing the difference between traditions and bad habits. There's a lot of tradition in the production of scotch.
For the past two years the [Loch Lomond Distillery], based in Alexandria near Glasgow, has been producing almost 12m litres of grain alcohol and 4m litres of single malt annually. Some has been produced using a single-still method that cuts CO2 emissions by thousands of tonnes every year. Distillery bosses say they have already smashed government climate change targets for 2011 by cutting energy use by 7%.
However, under the new definition of what constitutes "Scotch malt whisky", due to come into force on 23 November, Loch Lomond will have to close the still or see millions knocked off the value of its product because it can no longer be classified as malt whisky. According to the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA), which helped draw up the amendments to the Scotch Whisky Order 1990, a true malt will only be classed as such if it is made "by batch distillation in pot stills".
Here's why Loch Lomond thinks that some of the traditions are bad habits.
"We have a method that produces a very good malt spirit but are being penalised because we are innovators," said John Peterson, distilling director of Loch Lomond. "We want to make the process better and save considerable amounts of energy. As it is, we prevent more than 1,400 tonnes of CO2 being released every year and they want us to go back to the old inefficient ways.
"The SWA wants us to call it grain whisky, but it's not; if anything that's an even more misleading description. Politicians are quick to shout about climate change and how industry has to find new ways to reduce carbon output, but when we try to do something innovative we get slapped down for it."
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Environmental groups, however, have applauded Loch Lomond Distillery and the whisky industry for trying to address the climate change issue. "The Scottish whisky industry is becoming a hotbed of innovation for the adoption of renewable and low-energy technologies, and it's essential that it does so as a major employer and exporter," said Duncan McLaren, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland.
The primary motivation is the bottom-line...saving energy saves money. Tellingly, the company's website--which offers on-line sales (though not to the U.S.)--goes on and on about tradition but fails to mention emissions or climate change.
Helping to Spread Pathogens: The following attaches numbers to something we already knew--that food-borne pathogens tend to hit children harder.
Children under 4 are disproportionately the victims of poisoning by Campylobacter, E. coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes and salmonella. And roughly half of all reported cases of food-borne illness affect those younger than 15. Because younger kids are smaller, it takes a smaller dose of harmful bacteria to sicken them, and their less-experienced immune systems don't combat food-borne pathogens as effectively as do those of adults.
In somewhat related research also published this past week...
A Kansas State University study has shown that when preparing frozen foods, adolescents are less likely than adults to wash their hands and are more susceptible to cross-contaminating raw foods while cooking.
"While half of the adults we observed washed their hands after touching raw chicken, none of the adolescents did," said Casey Jacob, a food safety research assistant at K-State. "The non-existent hand washing rate, combined with certain age-specific behaviors like hair flipping and scratching in a variety of areas, could lead directly to instances of cross-contamination compared to the adults."
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Beyond the discrepancy between adult and adolescent food safety practices, the researchers also found that even when provided with instructions, food preparers don't follow them. They may not have even seen them or they assume they know what to do.
And if you thought that was a case of discovering the obvious...
They also found that observational research using discreet video recording is far more accurate than self-reported surveys. For example, while almost all of the primary meal preparers reported washing hands after every instance in which they touched raw poultry, only half were observed washing hands correctly after handling chicken products in the study.
That's an example of why it's always worth taking surveys with a grain or two of salt.
Data Blowing Both Ways: Earlier this year, the were many headlines on the following.
The study found that surface wind speeds, especially in the Midwest and the Northeast, have decreased by an average of 0.5 percent to 1 percent each year since 1973.
"We see this trend toward slower wind speeds and our unanswered question is whether this is part of global warming or something else," said Bill Gutowski, a professor of geological and atmospheric sciences and one of the four Iowa State scientists working on the study.
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The scientists looked at surface wind data around the country from 1973 to 2005 using wind-speed measurements from anemometers and computerized climate models to reach their conclusion.
That study would have been stronger if it had just depended upon actual data...why dilute it with climate models? And if the researchers wanted to avoid suspicions of cherry-picking regarding climate change, they should have worked with data starting before the abnormally-cool 1970s. It's not like we don't have good wind speed measurements going back several more decades.
Yesterday, a study was published on the change in wind speeds over Lake Superior.
Since 1985, surface water temperatures measured by lake buoys have climbed 1.2 degrees per decade, about 15 percent faster than the air above the lake and twice as fast as warming over nearby land.
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A wide temperature differential between water and air makes for a more stable atmosphere with calmer winds over the relatively cold water. However, as warming water closes the gap, as in Lake Superior's case, the atmosphere gets more turbulent.
"You get more powerful winds," Desai says. "We've seen a 5 percent increase per decade in average wind speed since 1985."
That's an even smaller data set...too bad the researchers didn't go back a few more years to see if the wind speeds dropped during a cooling spell.
If it's blowing that much more over the lake, it has to be impacting the surrounding lands as well. Evidently, the winds in other parts of the Midwest have been slowing enough to absorb the increases around Lake Superior? Both groups of researchers used multiple sets of data, but did they use the same data. If not, why?
Many organizations outsource customer service operations. This has been good for Sykes, a company of 33,000 employees which turned a profit last year of $60.6 million on revenues of about $820 million. Its customer service center in Milton-Freewater OR--which is less than 10 miles south of Walla Walla WA--was growing last year.
Sykes Enterprises, Incorporated, a global leader in providing outsourced customer contact management solutions and services in the business process outsourcing (BPO) arena, hosted an Open House on Thursday, February 7, 2008 to celebrate it’s recent growth at it’s Milton-Freewater, Oreg. operations as the Company seeks to hire more than 400 positions within the next six months.
However, we learned this week...
Sykes Enterprises in Milton-Freewater could lay off 336 employees effective Jan. 15, 2010. But City Manager Linda Hall said the company may just be between big contracts and may not cut any jobs.
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"According to the best information currently available, the layoffs are intended to be permanent," the notice said.
The 336 job losses include 302 customer service agents, 16 team managers and seven quality assurance technicians. Hall, though, said a call from Andrea Burnett, Sykes' director of marketing communications, alleviated some worry.
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Hall explained Sykes was following the federal law that requires companies to issue notices within 60 days of knowing about a potential layoff.
This article provided further explanation as to why the mayor said "some worry."
Burnett said she didn't know if the company would offer severance payments to laid off workers.
Unlike so many of the subsidies the state has lavished on green energy initiatives, the financial aid that helped lure Sykes to Oregon looks like it's paid off--even with the threat of layoffs.
Since the 1990s, state and local governments have invested $300,000 directly into the company to attract the jobs. Burnett wouldn't disclose the wages for those jobs. The direct state support includes a $200,000 forgivable loan from Gov. John Kitzhaber's economic development fund. Marc Zolton, spokesman for the Oregon Business Development Department, said Sykes met job creation targets and the state forgave the loan.
The state also invested another $2.35 million in infrastructure improvements to the industrial park where Sykes is located, Zolton said.
Would Oregon be one of the 10 states facing fiscal peril if Governor Kulongoski had spent our money on green initiatives more wisely? Unfortunately with PERS, the answer would still be yes.
According to World Health Organization data published today, H1N1 has killed "at least 6,260 people" around the globe, the majority here in North America. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control data--also published today--has the global death toll at 6,768. That's obviously sad, but the totals remain far below the typical number of deaths caused by garden-variety flu viruses every winter.
It seems like whenever folks have flu-like symptoms nowadays, people assume that the swine flu (an incorrect name which has stuck to H1N1) is the cause. Turns out that when folks spend the money to actually test for the cause, a number of cases aren't even a type of the flu. For instance...
Tests at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia suggest that large numbers of people who got sick this fall actually fell victim to a sudden, unusually severe -- and continuing -- outbreak of rhinovirus, better known as a key cause of the common cold.
Experts say it is logistically and financially impossible to test everyone with flu-like symptoms. And signs, treatment, and prognoses for a bad cold and a mild flu are virtually identical, so the response hardly differs.
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For years, rhinoviruses have been the Rodney Dangerfields of microbes. Even major institutions have found plenty of reasons not to pay them much mind. They are exceedingly common, they cause mere colds, they come in hundreds of hard-to-identify strains that make testing a challenge, and there is no effective treatment anyway.
Only about half of the maladies we consider the common cold are caused by rhinoviruses.
Rhinovirus -- named after the Greek word for nose -- is known to circulate year-round, and typically to peak shortly before and after flu season. Children's recorded rising numbers in September, right on schedule. Then they kept rising.
"The rate of activity was unbelievably high," Richard L. Hodinka, director of the clinical virology laboratory, said yesterday. "What got my attention was not only the numbers we were seeing in the laboratory, but physicians saying there was severe disease."
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Besides the sheer numbers of rhinovirus, [Dr.] Coffin was surprised that it was causing more problems -- wheezing, pneumonia, fever, and lower-respiratory-tract infections -- than are normally associated with the common cold, which typically infects the upper respiratory tract. That has led her to suspect that a strain not seen here before may be responsible. The CDC's lab will attempt to identify the strain.
With no nationwide reporting and few other hospitals routinely testing for rhinovirus, it is difficult to determine whether it is causing similar problems elsewhere. Hodinka, the Children's lab director, said rhinovirus outbreaks generally were not limited to one city; he suspects that this one is occurring in other East Coast cities.
The article did offer a curious thought regarding the relationship between rhinoviruses and the flu.
Mackay [a leading researcher in emerging viruses at the Queensland Paediatric Infectious Diseases Laboratory in Australia] also is intrigued by the possibility that the timing of Philadelphia's rhinovirus outbreak -- like others, shortly before the flu -- was more than coincidence.
A fledgling, highly controversial theory suggests that circulating rhinovirus can somehow delay the spread of influenza -- one more reason, Mackay said, to increase the testing and study of rhinovirus.
If nothing else, it may help attract more funding to the research of the many common colds.
Update: Here's some info from a German article on H1N1 numbers.
According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the German federal institution responsible for disease control and prevention, there are now 30,000 registered cases of swine flu infection. But that number is relatively meaningless, because the RKI database generally includes only those cases in which a very complex, costly and rarely performed series of laboratory tests has confirmed the diagnosis.
"A precise estimate is not possible at this time," says Gérard Krause, the head of the RKI's Department for Infectious Disease Epidemiology. The virus has become so widespread that it can now be contracted virtually anywhere. Many of those with symptoms don't even go to the doctor, while a significant percentage of those infected have no symptoms at all. Scientists are surprised by how many people already have antibodies against H1N1 in their blood without even knowing that they had the swine flu.
Conversely, not everyone who is sick in bed with a fever and a cough has the swine flu. More than 200 different viruses can cause flu-like symptoms. Of the throat swabs taken from patients suspected of having swine flu that were sent to the RKI's National Reference Center, only 40 percent actually tested positive for H1N1 in the end. In other words, three out of five patients believed to be infected with the virus did not have swine flu.
Germany has had 16 deaths from H1N1.
Some industries are criticized for producing thermal (heat) pollution. The cooling water from power plants--especially nuclear--is often cited as an example. And while it's usually portrayed differently, urban heat islands gain part of their warmth from man's activities rather than land-use changes. Yet, the following way of dealing with heat pollution is considered green.
Enormous sheds filled with racks of computers pop up every day and everywhere, the silent power strengthening the ever-more-connected and ever-more-digital world.
But in Ark Continuity's new SQ17 server farm buried deep in the former stone mines of Corsham, is something worth noting. The facility, unveiled today, is probably the most sustainable and environmentally friendly of its kind in the world: a combination of location and design means that it uses more than a third less energy than a typical data centre.
"Between 25-40% of the cost of running a data centre would be in the electricity," says Jeffrey Thomas, chief executive of Ark Continuity. "So if we can cut that in half, we're making a significant economic saving for our occupiers, even before their CO2 reduction obligations."
IT accounts for around 2% of the UK's carbon emissions and the sector is aware of increasing impact it will have on energy and environment as it grows. "Being more efficient in the data centre is synonymous not only with saving carbon but also saving money," says Kate Craig-Wood, co-founder of the carbon-neutral ISP Memset. "So it's pretty common sense really."
I've blogged previously about companies building data centers in northerly locations here in the U.S. to save energy on cooling. From the standpoint of cost and energy utilization, taking advantage of colder climates makes great sense. Meanwhile as incandescent bulbs periodically remind us, heat pollution can be rather useful when one's cold. It's only pollution when we don't like the effects.
He acquired what is now known as Spring Park ten years ago. A hundred miles from London and with a million-square-feet hole underground, it was not immediately obvious to Thomas that the site should be used as a data centre. The facility had been an underground munitions dump and factory site during the Second World War. "In the Cold War, latterly under Macmillan and Thatcher, it became the seat of government in a time of crisis. Part of it became a nuclear bunker."
This meant the underground buildings were some of the most secure facilities in the UK, reinforced and strengthened so that they could withstand three 10-megaton nuclear strikes at the same time. And it also had interesting environmental characteristics -– being a damp mine, it was ideal at staying cool. "The sun never shines down there so there's no solar gain," says Thomas. "With the size of it and the evaporative qualities of the mine, we can dissipate 20MW of energy with adiabatic cooling with 10 litres of water a second, which is just cycled around in a fog underground."
"At our latitude and altitude, we'll get around 60-65% of the year we should achieve free air cooling -– that means the temperature of the outside of the building is cool enough to use to cool the inside of the building."
The Cold War in a cold place... But eventually--as the subway system in London has shown (previous blog here), that ground will slowly warm up.