Tag Archives: Energy

Economist reports proposed Site C Dam ‘dramatically’ more costly than BC gov’t claims

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Peace Valley Landowners Association commissioned leading U.S. energy economist, Robert McCullough, to look at the business case for what will be province’s most expensive public infrastructure project

Image source:  http://unistotencamp.com/?p=601

Source: www.theglobeandmail.com

>”Just weeks before BC Hydro plans to begin construction of the $8.8-billion Site C project, a new report says the Crown corporation has dramatically understated the cost of producing power from the hydroelectric dam.

…Mr. McCullough, in his report, said it appears the Crown corporation BC Hydro had its thumbs on the scale to make its mega project look better than the private-sector alternatives.

“Using industry standard assumptions, Site C is more than three times as costly as the least expensive option,” Mr. McCullough concluded. “While the cost and choice of options deserve further analysis, the simple conclusion is that Site C is more expensive – dramatically so – than the renewable [and] natural gas portfolios elsewhere in the U.S. and Canada.”

The report challenges a number of assumptions that led the government to conclude that Site C is the cheapest option. Mr. McCullough noted that the province adopted accounting changes last fall that reduced the cost of power generated by Site C. He said those changes are illusory and the costs will eventually have to be paid either by Hydro ratepayers, or provincial taxpayers.

Mr. McCullough, a leading expert on power utilities in the Pacific Northwest, also disputes the rate that BC Hydro used to compare the long-term borrowing cost of capital for Site C against other projects, noting that other major utilities in North America use higher rates for such projects because they are considered risky investments. The so-called discount rate is critical to the overall cost projections, and he said the paper trail on how the Crown arrived at its figure “can only be described as sketchy and inadequate.”

The report, obtained by The Globe and Mail, will be released on Tuesday by the PVLA.

The group will call on Premier Christy Clark to delay construction to allow time for a review by Auditor-General Carol Bellringer.

Ken Boon, president of the association, said the government needs to put the project on hold because it has approved the project based on poor advice. […]”<

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The Smart City

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“With this unprecedented access to information, Smart Cities will deliver new levels of efficiency, effectiveness, safety, reliability, and higher levels of service. This access enables a city to anticipate and prevent problems in areas like reducing accidents by rerouting traffic, and reducing crime by identifying hot spots. New insight also enables the provision of services like finding a parking spot, monitoring air pollution, intelligent lighting, and others. A sense and respond model (a key future enabler) allows for the delivery of many of these services without human intervention.

A next generation of efficiency is also enabled, as asset tracking will streamline operations and insight will deliver unprecedented levels of efficiency. For example, a recent survey of water utilities found a saving potential between $7.1 and $12.5 billion each year through smart water solutions. The chief globalization officer of Cisco has said that smart cities drive energy consumption savings of 30% and water consumption savings of 50%. These environmental benefits include reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving waste management. Boston University Installed self-powered trash receptacles which wirelessly alerted collection vehicles when they were full, resulting in on-campus trash collection being reduced from 14 times per week to an average of 1.6 times per week.

The Smart City

The Smart City is Defined as a developed urban area that creates sustainable economic development and a high quality of life by excelling in multiple key areas; economy, mobility, environment, people, living, and government. Excelling in these key areas requires strong human capital, social capital, and information and communications technology. We are in the early days of an evolution towards Smart Cities, and IDC Government Insights finds that most cities are deploying these projects department by department. In a recent IDC White paper, they provide a maturity model to describe this Smart City evolution…”

Frank Diana's avatarReimagining the Future

Next up in this ongoing look at disruptive scenarios is the Smart City. For the first time in history, more than 50% of the world’s population lives in cities, and that percentage moves to 70% by 2050. This visual effectively captures the dramatic move towards urbanization:

Urbanization Statistics

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Closed Loop Cooling Saves Millions of Gallons of Water in Texas Combined Cycle Natural Gas Power Plant

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Source: gereports.ca

>” […] Instead of water, each of the two plants will use two powerful air-cooled “Harriet” gas turbines and one air-cooled steam turbine developed by GE. “The technology uses the same cooling principle as the radiator in your car,” Harris says. “You blow in the air and it cools the medium flowing in closed loops around the turbines.”

The power plants, which are expected to open next year, will be using a so-called combined cycle design (see image below) and produce power in two steps. First, the two gas turbines (in the center with exhaust stacks) extract energy from burning natural gas and use it to spin electricity generators. But they also produce waste heat.

The system sends the waste heat to a boiler filled with water, which produces steam that drives a steam turbine to extract more energy and generate more power.

But that’s easier said than done. The steam inside the steamturbine moves in a closed loop and needs to be cooled down back to water so it could be heated up again in the boiler. “Normally, we cool this steam with water, which evaporates and cools down in huge mechanical cooling towers,” says GE engineer Thomas Dreisbach. “A lot of the cooling water escapes in those huge white clouds you sometimes see rising from towers next to power plants.” The Exelon design is using a row of powerful fans and air condensers (rear right) to do the trick and save water.

Similar to the steam turbines, GE’s Harriet gas turbines also use air to chill a closed loop filled with the coolant glycol and reduce the temperature inside the turbine. The combined efficiency of the plant will approach 61 percent, which in the power-generation industry is like running a sub 4-minute mile. […]”<

 

 

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Brewery’s Waste Treatment Bio-Gas Fuel Micro-Turbines for Grid Power

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Sierra Nevada taps waste-to-energy technologies as a way to close operational loops and demonstrate responsible brewing practices.

Source: www.rewmag.com

>”[…]

Biogas benefits

Sierra Nevada operates breweries in Chico, California, and in Mills River, North Carolina. While the Chico facility has been in operation since 1980, the Mills River brewery didn’t break ground until 2012. Both facilities operate anaerobic digesters for treating brewery effluent water. Each facility uses the biogas produced from the digesters a little bit differently. In Chico, the biogas is used to offset natural gas production for use in its boilers. The Mills River digester is also used in the boilers but is also being fed into two 200-kilowatt microturbines from Capstone of Chatsworth, California, which will generate electricity to power the operation.

McKay says the first anaerobic digester was installed in Chico in 2002, well before the technology had gained traction in the United States. The digester, manufactured by Veolia Water Technologies subsidiary Biothane, Pennsauken, New Jersey, is an upflow anaerobic sludge bed. The biogas produced from the digestion process is cleaned and treated by a biogas skid designed by Fuel Cell Energy, Danbury, Connecticut, before it is used in the boilers. When the digester was initially installed, Sierra Nevada had planned on using the biogas in its fuel cells, but the inconsistent flow of biogas from the digester was problematic for the fuel cells without a buffer zone.

“We just decided we would send the biogas all to the boilers because the boilers could definitely use it,” says McKay.

The fuel cells were installed in Chico in 2005 and are considered “old technology” by today’s standards, according to McKay. The company is currently deciding on a replacement for the fuel cells which is planned to be completed by the end of the year. Fuel cells, microturbines and other engine technologies have all been considered as potential replacements.

“Ideally we would like to produce electricity from any biogas we are producing at the wastewater treatment plant,” McKay says, adding, “It is fine to use in the boiler, but we would prefer to make electricity because it would be closing the loop a little bit better.” […]”<

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Geothermal Energy Could Cleanly Power the Planet

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The Earth’s heat offers a clean and steady source of electricity, though it doesn’t come cheap.

Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

>” […]

An alternative to fossil fuels, geothermal has potential far beyond Indonesia. It could help tame global warming by producing copious amounts of renewable energy. The United Nations estimates global reserves at about 200 gigawatts—double the total capacity of all U.S. nuclear power plants. Yet despite decades of effort, only 6.5 percent of that potential has been tapped.

Indonesia’s story explains why.

Volcanoes Offer Peril and Promise

A chain of more than 17,000 islands, Indonesia has dozens of active volcanoes—more than any other country. Those volcanoes offer the nation a potent energy source via deep underground reservoirs of hot water that seeps out of molten rock. Power plants can extract steam from those reservoirs and use it to turn turbines that generate electricity. […]

Indonesia currently produces the third largest amount of geothermal power, after the U.S. and the Philippines. Still, it’s tapping less than 5 percent of its potential 29-gigawatt capacity. It has 62 projects under way, and if all get built, Indonesia could overtake the Philippines by the end of this year and the U.S. in another decade or two, according to a 2015 industry analysis by the Washington-based Geothermal Energy Association. (See related blog post: “Nicaragua Looks to Geothermal for Energy Independence.”)

“Its resources are so startlingly good,” says Paul Brophy, president of EGS Inc., a California-based firm that recently did consulting work for Indonesia’s government on the geothermal industry.

The country, aiming to triple geothermal output from 1.4 to 4.9 gigawatts by 2019and to hit 10 gigawatts by 2025, is trying to fast-track projects.

Last year it amended a law to stop defining geothermal development as “mining” and thus allow work in protected forests, where many resources are located. The revision also shifts project approval from local to federal officials.

“That’s critical,” Brophy says, noting that the central government has more geothermal expertise.

Implementing the new provisions will take time, says Josh Nordquist of U.S.-based Ormat Technologies, which has invested in geothermal projects in Indonesia. Doing so could be a “real burden” for the government, he says, but adds, “I believe in the end it will work.” […]”<

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Clean Power Plan Seen as Historic Opportunity to Modernize the Electrical Grid

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Following the launch of the Clean Power Plan, concerns were raised about how adding renewable energy to the grid would affect reliability. According to a new report […] compliance is unlikely to materially affect reliability.

 

image source:  http://phys.org/news/2010-10-electric-grid.html

Source: domesticfuel.com

>”[…] Report lead author Jurgen Weiss PhD, senior researcher and lead author said that while the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) focused on concerns about the feasibility of achieving emissions standards with the technologies used to set the standards, they did not address several mitigating factors. These include:

The impact of retiring older, inefficient coal plants, due to current environmental regulations and market trends, on emissions rates of the remaining fleet;Various ways to address natural gas pipeline constraints; andEvidence that that higher levels of variable renewable energy sources can be effectively managed.

“With the tools currently available for managing an electric power system that is already in flux, we think it unlikely that compliance with EPA carbon rules will have a significant impact on reliability,” reported Weiss.

In November 2014, NERC issued an Initial Reliability Review in which it identified elements of the Clean Power Plan that could lead to reliability concerns. Echoed by some grid operators and cited in comments to EPA submitted by states, utilities, and industry groups, the NERC study has made reliability a critical issue in finalizing, and then implementing, the Clean Power Plan. These concerns compelled AEE to respond to the concerns by commissioning the Brattle study.

“We see EPA’s Clean Power Plan as an historic opportunity to modernize the U.S. electric power system,” said Malcolm Woolf, Senior Vice President for Policy and Government Affairs for Advanced Energy Economy, a business association. “We believe that advanced energy technologies, put to work by policies and market rules that we see in action today, will increase the reliability and resiliency of the electric power system, not reduce it.  […]”<

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The Oil Crash Sours LNG Future, Project Put on Hold

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The floating 8 million tonne per annum (mtpa) export plant moored at Lavaca Bay, Texas advanced by Houston-based Excelerate has been put on hold, according to regulatory filings obtained by Reuters.

Source: www.businessinsider.com

>” […] The project was initially due to begin exports in 2018.

Excelerate’s move bodes ill for thirteen other U.S. LNG projects, which have also not signed up enough international buyers, to reach a final investment decision (FID). Only Cheniere’s Sabine Pass and Sempra’s Cameron LNG projects have hit that milestone.

Back when LNG and crude oil prices were riding high in February, Excelerate, founded by Oklahoma billionaire George Kaiser, applied for permits to build the facility.

Eleven months on, its submission to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Dec. 23 said that uncertainty generated by a steep decrease in oil prices has forced it to conduct a “strategic reconsideration of the economic value of the project” and to suspend all activities until April 1, 2015.

“Due to the recent global market conditions, the company has determined that, at this time, this project no longer meets the financial criteria necessary in order for us to move forward with the capital investment,” a company spokesman told Reuters.

Stiff economic headwinds are making new developments tough going.

Prices that LNG projects can charge for long-term supply are falling from historic highs as new producers crowd the market, which is already oversupplied due to slowing demand and rising output that has seen spot Asian LNG prices halve this year.

At the same time, major consumers from Japan to South Korea and China are seeking to offload some of their long-term LNG supply commitments, contributing to the glut. […]”<

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-exclusive-oil-price-crash-claims-first-us-lng-project-casualty-2014-12#ixzz3NVGgV68I

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Bloom Box: The Alternative Energy Fuel Cell Technology – 60 Minutes

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https://youtube.com/watch?v=shkFDPI6kGE%3Ffs%3D1%26hl%3Dfr_FR

“Derived from a common sand-like powder, and leveraging breakthrough advances in materials science, our technology is able to produce clean, reliable, affordable power,… practically anywhere,… from a wide range of renewable or traditional fuels.”

Source: www.youtube.com

“Changing the Face of Energy

Bloom Energy is changing the way the world generates and consumes energy.

Our unique on-site power generation systems utilize an innovative new fuel cell technology with roots in NASA’s Mars program.  […]

Our Energy Servers® are among the most efficient energy generators on the planet; providing for significantly reduced electricity costs and dramatically lower greenhouse gas emissions.

By generating power on-site, where it is consumed, Bloom Energy offers increased electrical reliability and improved energy security, providing a clear path to energy independence.

Founded in 2001, Bloom Energy is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.”
http://www.bloomenergy.com/about/&nbsp;

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10 Most Efficient Renewable Energy Devices

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Renewable Geothermal Power Expands in Nevada

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Geothermal energy is a growing industry, with more plants going into Nevada’s mostly untapped resource.

Source: www.ktvn.com

Geothermal energy is a growing type of clean energy, and nowhere is that more true than in Nevada. Ormat Technologies has built a geothermal plant every year since 2005.  […]

“This is what the future is going to bring,” Gawell said. “You will see more and more of this in years ahead and it is already a boom for Reno.”

The Steamboat Complex is a binary plant that takes hot water from deep underground, to produce power.

“We convert the heat that’s in the fluid to electrical energy,” Bob Sullivan, Senior Vice President of Ormat Technologies said. “Then we put all the fluids back into the ground where it gets reheated. So, it’s a sustainable cycle.”  […]

Along with electricity, these facilities create economic development, putting hundreds of people to work, drilling wells and building the plants.   About 500 people have permanent jobs with Ormat, in the United States.  Another 500 people work for the company around the world.

“It’s a job engine,” Sullivan said. “It takes a lot of maintenance. It takes a lot of people. It takes a lot of workers, a lot of subcontractors to keep one of these facilities running.”

While the cost of fossil fuels goes up and down, geothermal stays steady. The fuel cost is upfront, in the form of drilling wells. Gawell says what is lost in capital and labor costs is saved in fuel costs. […]”<

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