Mechanical Engineering (Ethical Argument)

Introduction
Mechanical engineering is a pretty easy field when it comes to the workers themselves. There is almost no corruption and most mechanical engineers are friendly, willing to help and work together. The ethical argument is not with the engineers themselves but with the product or structures they are working to improve or maintain. A great example is the power plant in Sherburne county (Minnesota). With the most recent push for "green" or "renewable" energy there has been a push to retire the states largest power plant The Sherburne plant (or more commonly known as Sherco) is the states highest producer of carbon and ranks 21st in carbon production national. So is it as simple and easy as to just shut down the Sherco plant with this ethical dilemma?

Background
Information gathered from Xcel Energy's website and pervious information gathered while I was working for Xcel states that the Sherco plant was originally built in the 1970's having two coal fired boilers turning two turbine generators making 750 megawatts each. (provides power for 650,000 houses each). A third unit was installed in the 1980's and produces 900 megawatts of electricity (power for 800,000 houses). To power all this, 30,000 tons of coal is burned every day this equates to three train loads of coal. With environmental concerns rising Xcel Energy (major owner of the Sherco plant) created a project in the early 2000's that was designed to reduce emissions of its power generating facilities. Sherco was one of the plants that had emission reducing equipment added to the exhaust system. Xcel Energy put over a billion dollars into this emissions reduction program with many positive results.

Ethics
The definition of ethics from the Webster dictionary is "rules of behavior based on ideas of what is morally good and bad". This (I believe) is a very interesting definition of ethics. By this definition everyone in the world has their own set of ethics and there is no clear definition of what is ethical and what is not. For this blog though the ethical issue that is going to be used is that the Sherco plant produces too many green house gases and is a major producer of carbon dioxide which hurts the planets environment. This "hurting the planet" is generally seen as a bad behavior and not ethical. On the other side because the power plant is producing electricity that people need to live and continue with day to day life it can be argued that the power plant is doing its job and ethically it is good for people. The argument comes down to two sides, ethically wrong because it hurts the environment versus ethically justified because it helps people live their day to day lives.

Shutting Down Sherco
Most people enjoy living and would like to protect the planet at all costs.The ethical argument is that because Sherco is one of the largest contributors of carbon that it should be shut down immediately. With improvements is solar energy and wind; why not retire the Sherburne power generating plant and move to these clean forms of energy? With the rising concern about climate change and how green house gases are affecting the environment the obvious answer is to remove the problem and shut down any factory or system that produces these gases. Many mechanical engineers understand this reasoning and agree something needs to be done but many engineers are considered unethical because they are not willing to retire the Sherburne power plant.


Should Sherco Be Retired?
ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!! From a mechanical engineering standpoint this is a terrible idea. To many people it would appear obvious that Sherco should be retired but many of these people do not have an understanding of how large Sherco is and how much electricity is produced at this power plant. Minnesota has a population of approximately 5 million people, the Sherco plant alone can produce enough electricity for over half these people. To replace this one plant with wind turbines and solar panels is a ridiculous idea at this point in time. A single wind turbine can produce 2-3 megawatts of power at max wind velocity. This also is a problem because as many of us know the wind does not blow all the time and on the flip side to protect the equipment from damage when to much wind is present the turbines have to be locked up and do not produce any electricity at this time. So next choice is solar power, well with the current cost of materials and the area needed to make up for 2,400 megawatts of power is not realistic at this current date; and again the sun does not always shine so at night and cloudy days no electricity is being produced. This also brings up a strong point for the Sherco plant. People wanting to shut the plant down might argue that the power plant does not always operate either. This is true but the Sherco plant has a typical availability factor of 95 percent while the national average is 78 percent. So lets do the math here, people are wanting to shut down a reliable, powerful, top producing plant that has had recent upgrades to reduce emissions just because it is still producing carbon. Any mechanical engineer can look at the data above and see that until a reliable, cheaper, cleaner energy source becomes available that the Sherco plant will be around for a while. In this particular case the ethical reasoning of the plant not being environmentally friendly is over powered by the fact people need and use electricity daily and there are no suitable replacements at this time.

Summary
Mechanical engineers are an interesting group of people and I will be the first to say don't always think about ethical issues. A mechanical engineer is going to do what is most logical and realistic and use that in their decision making. This is a clear case where unless people do not want reliable energy the Sherco plant will be around for the foreseeable future.