The electricity market is in the doldrums, but the market for new generating stations that use natural gas is going strong, industry experts say. Why? Because gas is beginning to replace coal, according to Randy H. Zwirn, president of the Siemens Power Generation Group.
On Monday, Siemens is announcing that it has won contracts to supply five new high-efficiency gas plants to Progress Energy at two sites in North Carolina that have old coal-fired generators. It is also replacing old gas-fired plants in Florida.
The H.F. Lee Energy Complex, near Goldsboro, has three coal-fired generators that began operating in 1951, 1952 and 1962. The three coal-fired generators at the Sutton plant, near Wilmington, went into service in 1954, 1955 and 1972.
The six plants are among 11 that Progress owns in North Carolina that do not have sulfur scrubbers. The company has said it will eventually close all 11.
Remote California town blazes trail with solar plant that saves water
On the southern horizon is a new breed of solar plant, one that could be a game changer for the industry.
Just across the California border, Nipton has unveiled a sun-powered generator that is expected to provide about 85 percent of the town’s electricity over the course of a year.
The solar plant uses a new technology, concentrating solar photovoltaic, known as CPV, which could be a boon in places like Nevada where the sun is strong, but water for power plants is scarce.
Concentrating solar power plants are expected to use far less water than their solar thermal cousins because they lack the cooling requirements and don’t need water to heat for steam. And because they have fewer photovoltaic panels to be cleaned than a traditional photovoltaic plant, they could use less water than traditional photovoltaic arrays.
Pumping Up the Heat for a Climate-Friendly Future
Making ground-source heat a cost-effective alternative to fossil fuels has long been a dream for countries that depend on energy imports and need to cut their carbon dioxide emissions. A team of businesses and researchers in Slovenia and Serbia set out to develop the heat pump technology that would make this dream a reality.
The chaos caused by a volcanic eruption in Iceland April 2010 and the dispersal of its ash cloud across European airspace was a reminder of the tremendous forces of nature that exist below the ground. Not all subterranean heat sources have such sinister power, however. Across Europe, there are plentiful sources of geothermal energy: heat stored in the ground which can be tapped to provide a renewable and inexhaustible energy supply. Using the right technology to access this power at varying depths and temperatures, we can use this heat to reduce our dependence on imported and climate-damaging fossil fuels.
Until recently, the technology to exploit geothermal energy in a cost-effective way has remained under-developed. However, in response to the growing economic and policy pressures to cut CO2 emissions and improve energy security, one company set out to change this state of affairs, with remarkable results.
Alternative-Energy Firms Adapt to Europe’s Woes
Europe’s economic woes have led Tom Werner, chief executive of solar-panel manufacturer SunPower Corp., to change the way he does business.
Companies in many industries have been affected by Europe’s problems, but alternative energy companies are especially exposed. Government subsidies have made Europe a dominant market for alternative energy, and it’s the world’s biggest solar-power market. Indeed, SunPower gets about half its sales there.
To respond to the problems, CEOs of companies that make solar panels and wind turbines are hedging against currency fluctuations more aggressively, boosting sales in other parts of the world and raising prices. They’re also trying to take advantage of lower prices in Europe by purchasing more components and doing more manufacturing there.
A weak Euro means that when sales are translated back into dollars or other stronger currencies, companies get less revenue. The Euro has fallen 16% against the dollar this year.
Initiative won’t thwart state’s emissions fight
California’s aggressive campaign to curb global warming will probably not come to a screeching halt even if voters eventually apply the brakes.
An initiative that appears all but certain to qualify for the November ballot would suspend the state’s landmark law to gradually reduce greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming until there’s a sustained economic recovery.
The initiative narrowly targets the law passed as Assembly Bill 32 in 2006 and its subsequent regulations and likely would leave other ambitious global warming policies untouched, people on both sides of the ballot measure agree.
Automakers will still have to fill showrooms with models that emit fewer greenhouse gases, utilities must find renewable sources of electricity, and cleaner diesel truck engine regulations will remain in effect.
Harper pressured to put climate change on G8, G20 agenda
It was described by Prime Minister Stephen Harper as a “sideshow,” but international leaders are mounting pressure on the Canadian government to include climate change as a major issue on the agenda at upcoming G8 and G20 economic summits in Huntsville, Ont., and Toronto.
“We are actively consulting our guests to prepare the agenda,” Harper said last week in the House of Commons.
“Obviously, a lot of subjects will be discussed, including some issues surrounding climate change. At the same time, the G20 isn’t expected to replace the United Nations (global-warming) negotiating process.”
In recent weeks, international leaders from the European Union, Mexico, the United Nations, along with Nobel Peace Prize laureates have all come forward, urging Harper to allow the summits to consider the climate-change issues as part of their discussions on achieving a sustainable economy.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
The Canadian Harper government consults guests as to what should be on the agenda, but not his own constituants:
A May 31st poll shows that 55.3% of Canadians think that climate change ranks in top 2 issues to bring up to G8/G20, 44.6% economic recovery, and only 28% picked improving maternal health. The Conservative Government supporters shows 41.9%, 52.5%, and 20.6%, respectively.
http://www.nanosresearch.com/library/polls/POLNAT-W10-T423.pdf
It is good to see natural gas, the prince of hydrocarbons, replacing coal.
However, I just saw the trailer for “Gasland”, about natural gas fracking. Suddenly I’m less enthusiastic for gas.
Clean energy is efficiency, renewables, and old-fashioned conservation.
Is Gulf Oil Headed For The East Coast? A New Simulation Says: Maybe
Dr. Steve Pacala of the Princeton Environmental Institute, and Climate Central board member, discusses how the NCAR computer modeling study illustrates how we are all interconnected.
http://www.climatecentral.org/breaking/features/is_gulf_oil_headed_for_the_east_coast_a_new_simulation_says_maybe/
Health studies gas up
Colorado launches one of the nation’s first health assessments of gas-drilling impacts
http://www.hcn.org/issues/42.11/health-studies-gas-up
Barack Obama calls for clean energy push
US President Barack Obama has called on his Democratic party and other supporters to back a government campaign for clean energy.
In a statement made as he visited areas affected by the BP oil spill, he said the US must “embrace a new future”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10313921.stm
The Smallest Mini Solar Power Amazing Car On The Planet
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170460716984
Since I’m in NC I’ve been reading about Progress Energy’s natural gas plants and plans for some time. The great big two flies in the ointment are, as stated, fracking and the fact that Progress Energy is only phasing out some extremely small and extremely old coal plants and replacing them with gas-fired generating plants of greater megawattage. I did the math on paper a year or so ago and it appears that their CO2 emissions would increase.
However that assumes the new plants running 24/7 and that the old plants ran 24/7 (etc.).
More to the point, maybe, natural gas is a much better fuel to replace electricity for heat than it is to replace coal for electricity generation. The reason is that electricity is very inefficient when asked to make heat, so using gas to make electricity, then using electricity to make heat is obviously far less efficient than using gas to make heat directly.
Here in NC both Progress Energy and Duke Energy have been allowed for 40-50 years almost to put in underground utilities for free to housing developments that are “all-electric” and have no natural gas lines or access, while charging an arm and a leg to “mixed fuel” ones.
They also for years, even before Energy Star, gave various discounts and benefits for their idea of an energy efficient building, which had to be all electric, even a mobile home could qualify.
The words Hummer, zero emissions and 100 miles per gallon don’t often end up in the same sentence, but it is just the sort of thing the U.S. Army is looking for to save lives and reduce its massive energy bill.
The Hummer was one of nearly 60 avant-garde technologies showed off by companies at a two-day symposium held on Fort Bliss last week.
It wasn’t a Tony Stark, aka “Iron Man,” style Army expo; instead of high-powered guns, rockets and missiles, companies pitched ready-to-use, energy-sipping technologies.
But the goal is the same – utilize the latest technology to give the Army a tactical advantage in the battlefield.
“For the Department of Defense, energy is a critical weapon of war. We need energy the same way we need ammunition and people. If any of the three are absent we cannot fundamentally do our job. We’re dead in the water,” said Drexel Kleber, director of strategic operations for the Pentagon’s Power Surety Task Force.
Fort Bliss aims to take the lead, and officials announced during the symposium that their goal is to produce enough electricity to power the installation through wind, sun and geothermal sources by 2025.
At what the Army called the Renewable Energy Rodeo and Symposium, companies like Lockheed Martin, 3M, Chevron and General Electric demonstrated wind turbines that can be mounted on light poles. There were intelligent microgrids and new technologies to harvest geothermal energy and energy from garbage.
Local companies Solar Smart Living and Border Solar demonstrated solar panel systems and electric-car charging ports.
http://elpasoinc.com/readArticle.aspx?issueid=290&xrec=5354
BRIEFING – ASIA ENERGY – JUNE 14, 2010
http://www.tradingmarkets.com/news/stock-alert/pkx_briefing-asia-energy-june-14-2010-981271.html
Renewable energy to ease power shortage
Countries in the GCC, a region with a high concentration of hydrocarbons, need strong policy initiatives and closer involvement of the region’s governments to promote the renewable energy sector, top-placed officials in the industry said.
Renewable energy, especially solar power, could help an emirate such as Sharjah, which is experiencing power shortage, supplement its supplies, they suggested.
“Harvesting the energy of the sun is a great possibility for the [GCC] region. It could also be a good way to prevent electrical shortages, like in Sharjah. This emirate is going through drastic shortage at the moment,” Hélène Pelosse, the Interim Director-General of Abu Dhabi-based International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena), told
http://www.business24-7.ae/companies-markets/energy-utilities/renewable-energy-to-ease-power-shortage-2010-06-08-1.252908
Kuwait, Japan eye lift in renewable, atomic energy
TOKYO, June 2, (KUNA): Kuwait and Japan agreed Wednesday to scale up cooperation in the fields of renewable energy and energy conservation, according to a joint statement signed by the two countries.
http://www.arabtimesonline.com/NewsDetails/tabid/96/smid/414/ArticleID/154790/t/Kuwait,-Japan-eye-lift-in-renewable,-atomic-energy/Default.aspx
Power consumption in Kuwait hits new record thanks to heatwave
http://www.ifandp.com/article/005058.html
Oil spills escalated in this decade
The number of spills from offshore oil rigs and pipelines in U.S. waters more than quadrupled this decade, a trend that could have served as a warning for the massive leak in the Gulf of Mexico, according to government data and safety experts.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-06-07-oil-spill-mess_N.htm
Unrelenting thunderstorms flood Oklahoma City
CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras said the damage Monday morning was caused by “backbuilding thunderstorms,” a series of heavy rain cores without intermittent periods of let-up. After an early afternoon respite, CNN meteorologist Sean Morris said, Oklahoma City is again under a severe thunderstorm watch, as more storms head toward the rain-soaked metropolitan area. However, Morris said the newer storms are aiming south and east of the areas deluged the most Monday morning.
The National Weather Service said almost 10 inches of rain fell between 2 and 11 a.m. A flash flood watch was extended across central Oklahoma through 7 a.m. CT Tuesday.
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/06/14/us.oklahoma.floods/?hpt=T2
lizardo –
That’s kind of the old, classic thinking on that topic. I think it’s not so true anymore.
First, the statement “electricity is very inefficient when asked to make heat” is wrong by itself, because it’s very easy to transform electricity into heat with 100% efficiency.
But what you’re actually saying, I believe, is that doing gas –> electricity –> heat is less efficient than doing gas –> heat directly, because the former is burning the gas at the power station, losing a lot of heat as waste, while the latter burns the gas at the point of use, and is (theoretically) able to use all of the heat directly.
Well, that’s true only if (A) your electricity comes exclusively from gas (or coal), and (B) you’re not using a heat pump system. If either of those changes, heating with electricity can move back into the winner’s column — especially if it means that you can avoid building a costly, dangerous gas-distribution infrastructure. If the power comes from a non-CO2-producing source, then it’s a win in terms of carbon output, of course. And heat pumps can have “efficiencies” in the 200% to 400% range, because the heat is coming from the ground or air, and the electricity is just being used to move & concentrate it. You might still need to do some direct electricity –> heat if your heat source is not performing fully (e.g. if you’re air-source and it’s 30 degrees F outside), but overall it can still be a win.
Actually, even without either of those, electricity could still win in some situations, as it can be delivered even more-directly to the point of use. A gas-fired heating system in your house can’t just pipe the combustion products directly to the vents, as that would poison the occupants; therefore it has to go through a heat exchanger, which will inevitably lose some energy. Plus there could be losses in the ducting system. Electrically-powered space heaters, on the other hand, are certainly delivering all of their received electrical energy to heat the room’s air, and can be activated just in the rooms where they are needed (e.g. in the bedrooms overnight instead of the whole house).
So, when you say:
I look at that and say “good!” Because it means that there are a lot of communities that lack gas distribution, and so are set up to become 100% carbon-free as soon as their grid power achieves that goal, and are probably already using heat pumps and space heaters a lot. Communities that do have gas distribution will take longer to get to that point.
lizardo #7 – An increase in CO2 per unit electricity produced or an overall/total increase in CO2?
Perhaps a decrease in CO2 per unit electricity produced?
Afghanistan’s lithium Eureka
“China has positioned itself very well as the clean technology minerals leader,” says cleantech analyst Dallas Kachan of Kachan & Co. “The rest of the world is years behind them. The U.S. has no commercial rare earth element refining operations. China effectively has a strangle hold on the rare earth elements needed for cleantech — including those needed to build wind turbines and other things, not just batteries.”
According to Kachan, the global community is just now waking up to this.
This budding face-off with China is the subject of most of the stories covering the Afghanistan mineral find. Not only is China keen on cornering the lithium-ion battery market, it’s also looking to meet demand for green consumer vehicles, now that it’s become the biggest automotive market in the world. Just look at China’s BYD — founded as a battery maker and funded by Warren Buffett — it has rapidly branched into electric vehicles with ambitions to break into the U.S. and European markets too.
“Lithium makes up such a relatively small percentage of lithium-ion batteries,” he says. “So whoever owns the storehouse won’t necessarily win in the electric vehicle marketplace.”
http://green.venturebeat.com/2010/06/14/afghanistans-lithium-eureka-a-big-win-for-china-or-another-bolivia
Deepwater spill survey: Scientists embark on methane-examining mission
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=deepwater-spill-survey-scientists-e-2010-06-14
Solar lightbulb to shine on developing world
Here’s a bright idea for the planet. A Hong Kong-based company has introduced what it bills as the world’s only solar-powered lightbulb with the hope of reaching millions of people with little or no access to electricity.
Nokero’s N100 solar LED lightbulb
The Nokero N100 solar LED lightbulb is meant to replace kerosene lamps as a lighting source in the developing world. The company says 1.6 billion people still lack sufficient access to electricity, and many burn fossil fuels for light, which can be dangerous and expensive.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20007538-1.html
A letter to the next generation of graduates….You can solve the problems you face….
Rebooting the world: a job for the new generation
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/rebooting-the-world-a-job-for-the-new-generation/article1601661/?cmpid=rss1&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheGlobeAndMail-Front+(The+Globe+and+Mail+-+Latest+News)
The world is too unequal, unstable and unsustainable.
Emerging ocean concern: tiny plastic particles
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/6420ap_wa_microplastics.html
Heat Wave Worst Time for AC Meltdowns
As temperatures approached triple digits Monday, some Chesterfield workers and Richmond students found themselves without air conditioning.
A downed power line near the Chesterfield County Government Complex stripped the building of all energy, creating stifling conditions for employees.
“We believe the cooling malfunction at George Mason was caused by last night’s severe storm,”
http://www.wtvr.com/news/wtvr-heatwave-no-ac-100614,0,6290080.story
AUGUSTA, Ga. – Our early summer heatwave broke another record high temperature on Monday. The high temperature of 103F occurred at 3:21pm at Augusta Bush Field and broke the old record of 101F set back in 2000. A record-breaking high of 102F is expected Tuesday.
http://www.nbcaugusta.com/news/georgia/96266934.html
North India under the effect of heatwave
The summer-sun is tightening its grip across the states as north India witnesses the crossing of 45-degree mark in parts of Rajasthan at the same time even showers drench the regions of Himachal Pradesh.
In case of the other states such as Punjab and Haryana, Hissar was the hottest at 43.7 C, three degrees above normal and the mercury kept soaring with an overall rise in temperature.
http://www.topnews.in/north-india-under-effect-heatwave-2264712
New Wind Capacity Keeps Pace
With Natural Gas in Europe
http://www.e360.yale.edu/content/digest.msp?id=2459