That's applesauce progress

By Jeffrey R. DeRego
HippoPress.com

Apples are very bad sources of electricity.

Londonderry is a town driven by apples and, no doubt, if you have traveled through Londonderry, you have driven by several apple orchards. Being the apple Mecca of New England has its benefits. When prepared correctly, apples can be transformed from simple tree born fruit to complex confections like pie, and cobbler.

Londonderry is Appletown because tourists from as far away as....well....Massachusetts, come to Londonderry’s five orchards and nearly 1,500 acres of apples. Mack’s Apples, one of the largest orchards in the state, was featured in AT&T and UPS ad campaigns.

So, what’s all this I hear about an AES Corp. power plant being built in Londonderry?

The possibility that a gigantic gas fired powerplant may steal some of the apples’ limelight is of definite concern to the residents of Londonderry. Honestly, who wants to live in Kilowatt-Town? Can Kilowatts be made into succulent New Englandee desserts? Is electric generation as American as apple pie?

I often take wedges of apple pie into the tub during my semi-annual baths, and not once have I suffered a heart stopping electrical shock. (Once though, I dropped my pie alamode beneath the bubbles, and though I suffered some dessert related withdrawal, I was otherwise unharmed. The pie was not so lucky.)

Londonderry, of course, draws its share of tourists because apple orchards provide a thrilling wonderland of excitement to the flatlanders. However, apple trees are relatively small, especially compared to the 130-foot-tall or so smoke stacks required to keep the AES plant functioning. Apples are also notoriously quiet, while the AES plant will offer the residents of Londonderry a comforting, though persistent hum created by the 720-megawatt double turbine generators.

Perhaps we could combine both worlds.

During a childhood science experiment, I powered a 15-watt Christmas tree lightbulb for thirty seconds with a potato, two strips of magnesium, and a pair of copper wires. Even if we wired every apple in Londonderry with magnesium strips and copper we would never generate the same wattage as the AES plant.

Fruit-generated electricity has safety and environmental drawbacks as well, as none of the apples would be suitable for eating, and several seasonal apple pickers would die from electrocution during the yearly harvest season. Perhaps worse than dead apple pickers would be the tremendous amount of apple refuse left over once the apples have given their last watt. I, for one, cannot imagine where some eighty million gallons of powerless, rancid applesauce could be properly disposed.

This does not absolve the AES plant of safety concerns even if they do not produce a sea of brown inedible fruit slurry. The AES plant draws its fuel from natural gas, and the plant would need a tremendous volume of natural gas to operate. Natural gas that would be pumped to the plant in subterranean pipes.

Gas pipes like the one in Carlsbad, New Mexico that recently exploded, responsible for the instant deaths of 12 campers.

To date, I know of no campers that have suffered horrible, albeit extremely rapid deaths, in any of Londonderry’s orchards. However, unconfirmed reports of unappetizing apple worms are beginning to circulate.

Since AES has promised $5 million in tax revenue per year to the people of Londonderry, and the local apple orchards pay no taxes, it seems like the power plant is a shoe in, and that’s no apple cobbler...

The precedent of tax revenue over general consensus opens Londonderry to the unparalleled possibility of non-apple related development over the next several decades. It may not be long before the town’s rustic charm is replaced by a futuristic wonderworld of majestic construction projects.

Some potential tax generating growth avenues include:

An intricate system of canals drawing millions of gallons of water from the picturesque Seacoast to create valuable waterfront property on Shasta Drive.

An indefinite lease of Sunnycrest Farm to the Russian space agency for the construction of a sister rocket pad to the Baikonur Space Platform in Khazakstan.

The erection of a giant Tesla Coil to deliver direct current from AES to the ever expanding Manchester Airport.

Conversion of Stonyfield Farm yogurt factory into a Union Carbide biological weapons development and testing facility.

Though none of these projects have yet been suggested, I think it is high time we begin thinking beyond AES and towards the gleaming metropolis of tomorrow that could be ours today, and we still wouldn’t have to tax the apple business to get there.

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