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Is the Global Crisis really about $140 a barrel oil?

Q&A: "The Global Crisis Is Really About a 140-dollar Barrel of Oil"

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Stimulus sparks surge in energy conservation industry

By MARGARET NEWKIRK

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A coming flood of federal stimulus money for Georgia’s energy conservation industry has state officials scrambling to line up their buckets.

Small government offices have until Monday to draw up plans for spending more than $200 million in new energy dollars announced two weeks ago.  READ FULL ARTICLE

http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/stories/2009/03/29/georgia_energy_stimulus.html

Three Mile Island Still Haunts Nuclear Policy

Three Mile Island
Originally uploaded by Vedanta Barooah

Benjamin Grove,
www.wsbtv.com

But five days of panic in Pennsylvania left lasting legacies. Three Mile Island became synonymous with nuclear catastrophe, stoked public fear of nuclear power, led to an overhaul of plant safety rules and effectively drained the steam from an entire industry – no new nuclear plants were ordered for 28 years. READ FULL ARTICLE

http://www.wsbtv.com/nationalnews/18963150/detail.html

Southern Company embraces the only practical and affordable way to ‘capture’ emissions at a coal plant today — run it on biomass

PA110044
Originally uploaded by HybridRainStorm

www.climateprogress.org  
www.americanprogressaction.org

The best and cheapest near-term strategy for reducing coal plant CO2 emissions without forcing utilities to simply walk away from their entire capital investment is to replace that coal with biomass (see “If Obama stops dirty coal, as he must, what will replace it? Part 2: An intro to biomass cofiring“).

Today, Energy Daily (subs. req’d) reports on the huge — but little covered — news from one of the nation’s biggest carbon polluters:

The Georgia Public Service Commission gave the green light Tuesday to a Georgia Power request to convert the utility’s 155 megawatt coal-fired Plant Mitchell near Albany, Ga., to burn woody biomass, a move that will result in the first biomass plant in the vast generation fleet of Georgia Power parent Southern Co.

This will become “the largest biomass facility in the United States,” according to Southern Company COO Tom Fanning. And this is not the only biomass effort Southern Company is pursuing:

Alabama Power, another Southern affiliate, is studying co-firing woody biomass and switchgrass at its coal-fired Gadsden plant near Birmingham and co-firing woody biomass at its coal-fired Barry plant near Bucks, Ala. Southern affiliate Gulf Power is evaluating co-firing biomass at its coal-fired Plant Scholz near Marianna, Fla.

The huge advantage of biomass conversion or co-firing is that you don’t have to build an entire planet from scratch, thus lowering the capital costs. Plus you already have the powerplant sited and you have transmission sited and you have train lines and water supply. Plus this is new baseload renewable power — arguably the most valuable commodity in the entire power sector these days.

And since biomass captures carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere during the process of growing, it is the only form of carbon capture that is likely to lead to deliver significant kilowatt-hours for the next one to two decades (see “Is coal with CCS a core climate solution?“).

So, again, this is, in the near term, the most practical and affordable strategy for utilities with coal plants that want to reduce CO2 emissions without simply writing off the entire value of their plant. Hence, this is a crucial strategy for coal-intensive utilities in the Southeast and Midwest that have long opposed renewable energy standards and climate action:

Southern for years has spearheaded utility industry opposition to a national renewable electricity standard (RES) that would require power companies to obtain a percentage of their electricity from wind, solar power or other green resources, saying the mandate would discriminate against utilities in the Southeast, which lacks the abundant wind and solar resources found in the Midwest and Southwest, respectively.

If this is to be a scalable medium-term solution, then the country will need to make an all out effort to develop cellulosic biomass for use in power plants. Even today, the resource is significant in the key regions:

However, the Southeast has enormous quantities of woody biomass, a renewable fuel that utilities can use to meet the RES. Southern’s Web site states that 8 million acres of forest and timberlands lie within a 100-mile radius of Plant Mitchell, providing 12 million tons of surplus supply wood fuel annually. The converted Mitchell plant, which will have a capacity of 96 MW, is expected to consume about 1 million tons per year.

The conversion of the Mitchell plant to biomass may signal recognition by Southern Co. that–with stronger Democratic majorities in the House and Senate and President Obama a strong backer of a federal RES–developing its extensive biomass resource may be both politically and economically prudent. The converted Mitchell plant is expected to begin operation in June 2012.

Interestingly, the new biomass power plant will generate more electricity than the current coal-fired unit. Here are some interesting details from a 2008 story in Biomass magazine:

According to Lynn Wallace, a company spokeswoman for Georgia Power, the nameplate capacity for the converted wood biomass-powered unit would be 59 megawatts lower due to the different physical characteristics of wood in comparison to coal. Wood contains more moisture and produces only 4,000 British thermal units (Btu) to 5,000 Btu per pound compared to coal at 12,000 Btu per pound, she said.

As a wood biomass-powered unit, the facility would actually produce more electricity than it does as a coal-fired unit, Wallace said. The unit currently operates at low capacity and is not considered one of the company’s base-load power units; however, the biomass-powered unit would operate continuously and be part of the company’s base load.

Surplus wood fuel for Plant Mitchell would come from suppliers operating within an approximately 100-mile radius of the plant. Wallace said the wood primarily would be waste wood, such as tree limbs, tree tops, needles, and leaves, which is normally left behind by timber harvesting companies. “We wouldn’t be competing with their wood supply,” she said.

Wallace said consumers are asking to have more energy produced from feedstocks and from processes that produce lower emissions. She said the wood biomass-powered unit will produce less sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions and will engender a net reduction in carbon emissions.

Wood biomass is also less expensive than coal, Wallace added. The new feedstock requirement for the unit is expected to create between 50 and 75 new jobs related to waste wood recovery. She said waste wood that is left on the forest floor also emits methane gas and can easily fuel forest fires if it’s not cleared away.

The key, of course, to make sure this is all done in the sustainable fashion. That will be the job of regulators and the Obama administration.

When I was at the Department of Energy, we were pursuing research into developing better fast-growing hybrid poplars, which are “the fastest growing hardwood trees available to homeowners and landowners in America and they are growing successfully from the Northern Gulf Coast to New England, throughout the Midwest and into the Northwest.” They are a high-energy crop that “grow well on marginal land, so they don’t take up valuable food-producing soil.”

The fundamental reason biomass conversion and co-firing are a core climate solution is that anyone who can deliver considerable amounts of low carbon power for under $0.15 a kilowatt hour — and especially if that is baseload power — will be a major player in the transition to a low carbon economy. And if you can do that in regions of the country that don’t have a vast solar resource suitable for concentrated solar thermal or wind — and especially if it is closer to $0.10 a kilowatt hour — then you will be doubly valuable.

City council gives Austin Energy the go-ahead for major solar project

Austin Business Journal - by Christopher Calnan

The Austin City Council on Thursday authorized Austin Energy to seek an agreement with a San Francisco company to develop the largest solar power generating project in the United States in Webberville.

Inserting last-minute caveats, council members gave the go-ahead for Gemini Solar Development Co. to build the 300-acre solar array that would generate 30-megawatts annually, enough electricity to power 5,000 homes.  READ FULL ARTICLE

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2009/03/02/daily49.html

Energy firms get go-ahead for UK wind farms

By Philip Waller & Tresa Sherin Morera

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain on Monday approved bids by energy firms to boost the number of offshore wind farms, potentially helping the UK to move closer to hitting tough renewable energy targets.

The Crown Estate, an independent body which owns all the seabed within 12 nautical miles of the UK coast, said it was awarding exclusivity agreements to companies and consortia to develop wind farms on 10 sites in the sea around Scotland. READ FULL ARTICLE

Maryland Seeks Partners to Jumpstart Large-Scale Renewable Energy Projects

Southern Maryland Online

Governor Martin O’Malley, in partnership with the University of Maryland, today announced a new initiative to spur large-scale, commercial renewable energy projects in the state. Called “Generating Clean Horizons”, Maryland is teaming up with county, university, and municipal partners to use their combined market power to jumpstart new commercial renewable energy projects.  READ FULL ARTICLE

LIPA to Spend $14.4 Million on Efficient Energy Programs

IMG_0697
Originally uploaded by Michael Turi

By JOHN RATHER
NEW YORK TIMES

THE Long Island Power Authority is moving ahead with an ambitious effort to generate more solar energy from commercial and industrial sites and increase spending by 80 percent to $14.4 million for residential rooftop solar power systems and other renewable energy programs, LIPA officials said.      READ FULL ARTICLE

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/nyregion/long-island/15solarli.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Time Magazine: Why the Energy Crisis Will Oulast the Credit Crisis

Oil Platform with Work Boat 6643.5
Originally uploaded by Kurt Preissler

By Vivienne Walt/Paris Saturday, Nov. 15, 2008 Time Magazine

The looming global energy crisis is unlikely to be on the agenda when the leaders of the world's major economic powers gather in Washington on Saturday for the Group of 20 summit: After all, they're scrambling to fix the world's financial system and soften the landing of the slowing world economy, and energy may seem a lot less urgent than the credit crisis — indeed, one silver lining of the global financial crisis has been a falloff in energy consumption and therefore, lower oil prices.

But the respite could be brief, according to the International Energy Agency's analysts. The Paris-based organization's annual World Energy Outlook, released on Wednesday, predicts that oil prices will start a steep climb soon, and by 2030 will settle around $120 a barrel — more than double this week's price — as producers face rocketing costs of equipment such as drills and rigs, and are forced into the increasingly expensive business of extracting oil from less accessible fields, many of them far out at sea. Added to that, the world economy continues to grow — albeit at a slower rate — which will likely accelerate again at some point in the coming years — prompting billions more people to drive cars and burn electricity at home during the next two decades, says the report by the IEA, which represents the industrialized oil-consuming countries. Securing sufficient energy supplies, and switching to low-carbon systems will require "radical action by governments."

click here for full article

Geothermal Energy on the Rise

05-Oct-08 9-00-39 PM_0005
Originally uploaded by Gad Shoshan

By Marla Dickerson LA Times

Reporting from Reno -- Not far from the blinking casinos of this gambler's paradise lies what could be called the Biggest Little Power Plant in the World.

Tucked into a few dusty acres across from a shopping mall, it uses steam heat from deep within the Earth's crust to generate electricity. Known as geothermal, the energy is clean, reliable and so abundant that this facility produces more than enough electricity to power every home in Reno, population 221,000.

There's no smoke. Very little noise," said Paul Thomsen, director of policy and business management for Ormat Technologies Inc., which owns the operation. "People don't even know it's here."

Geothermal energy may be the most prolific renewable fuel source that most people have never heard of. Although the supply is virtually limitless, the massive upfront costs required to extract it have long rendered geothermal a novelty. But that's changing fast as this old-line industry buzzes with activity after decades of stagnation.

Billionaire Warren E. Buffett has invested big. Internet giant Google Inc. is bankrolling advanced research. Entrepreneurs are paying record prices for drilling leases in places such as Nevada, where they're prospecting for heat instead of metals.

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