Category Archives: advanced energy structures

What Do Windsor, Co. and West Branch Ia. Have That Springfield, Il. Doesn’t

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The answer to that is a Wind Turbine Blade manufacturing plant. Poor Galesburg, Illinois (pop. 25,000) must consider itself star crossed.  First it loses manufacturing jobs because plants like Amana close and then it loses Acciona’s proposal to retrofit a new plant for Blade Production, which could have replaced those jobs. But at least they competed. Where was a town like Springfield when all this was going on? Nowhere to be seen.

West Branch, Ia is a city with a population of 2,500 and boasts to be the birth place of President Herbert Hoover. Winslow, Co. is a town with a  population of 15,000 that doesn’t boast about much. So what do they have in common? They have seen the Energy Future and it is Green.

Horizon Wind Energy

 •          Corporate     headquarters: Houston.The parent company, Enegias de Portugal, is the largest utili­ty in Portugal. EDP has more than 1 million customers worldwide.

•          More than 200 U.S. employees with regional offices in Illinois, California, Oregon,Colorado and Minnesota.

•          Wind farms operating or under construction in Illinois, Texas,New York, Iowa, Oregon, Pennsylva­nia and Minnesota.

clip_image002.jpg 

Jack Dempsey/The Associated Press

A wind turbine blade is displayed Wednesday during the opening of a Vestas factory in Windsor, Colo. The world’s largest wind-turbine maker, based in Denmark, opened its first plant in Colorado in 2007.
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Which is about the same time that Acciona announced that they had chosen West Branch as their site to build their plant. See these guys are in a competition to be the next world economic leaders while Springfield continues to sprawl uselessly and gears up to medically treat the aging baby boomers. What happens after the boomers die? Who cares.

http://windintell.blogspot.com/2008/01/usa-manufacturing-begins-for-spains.html

Acciona Windpower’s

West Branch plant in

 production

By David DeWitte
The Gazette

WEST BRANCH — Iowa Gov. Chet Culver got a look at Acciona Windpower’s first American-made wind turbine and an invitation to the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, here Thursday.

The new wind turbine plant turned out its first AW-1500 wind turbine last month, less than seven months after work on the company’s first North American factory here began.

At a dedication ceremony Thursday, Acciona Windpower Director General Pedro Ruiz said the plant’s ability to meet its rapid startup timetable “gives us great confidence for the future.”

Ruiz also discussed the company’s plans for a second round of investment in the plant after it reaches full production. The company plans to use the 36-acre West Branch site to begin assembling its larger 3-megawatt AW-3000 wind turbines that are now under development. A timetable for launching the product has not been announced.

The plant is the fourth worldwide production facility for Acciona Windpower, a division of Pamplona, Spain-based Acciona Energy. It is scheduled to turn out 200 turbines in 2008, and 400 units at full capacity.

>

The thing that continues to frustrate me is that they erect those wind farms here in Illinois. So why can’t they build the parts here as well? Oh the 2 winning town have another thing in common, the two companies are from the Spanish Pennsula, that is Portugal and Spain. Where are Commonwealth Edison and Ameren when you need them?

I have posted Acciona’s website and what I could about their North American affiliate before but not for Horizon or Energias de Portugal:
>
About Horizon Wind Energy

Horizon Wind Energy develops, constructs, owns and operates wind farms throughout
the United States. Based in Houston, Texas with regional offices in New York, Oregon,
Illinois, California, Denver and Minnesota, Horizon has developed more than 2000 MW
and owns over 1300 MW of operating wind farms. Horizon is currently developing a
portfolio of more than 10,500 MW in over a dozen states. Horizon is owned by Energias
de Portugal (EDP), the largest Portuguese utility. For more information, please visit
www.horizonwind.com

http://www.edp.pt/EDPI/Internet/EN/Group/AboutEDP/default.htm
>

Their motto – Feel our energy

Seven Deadly Sins Revised – Beyond Oil is pretty funny

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This was not what I had planned for today’s Post. But when I saw it on Peak Oil it just kinda reached out and grabbed me (abracadabra):

http://www.princeton.edu/hubbert/current-events.html

And Reposted Here:

http://www.theoildrum.com/

So Baby makes three:

beyond.jpg

  1. Thou shalt not drive an SUV at 70 miles per hour on the freeway, with the air-conditioner running, just to pick up a half gallon of milk at the grocery store.
  2. Thou shalt not waste energy and water by enjoying long hot showers.
  3. Thou shalt not vote for a presidential candidate who does not speak up about peak oil.
  4. Thou shalt not read the writings of Michael Lynch, Daniel Yergin, Jed Mouawad, or ExxonMobil. Pray that they may soon recognize the Truth.
  5. Thou shalt not oppose sainthood for M. King Hubbert. He’ll be St. Marion.
  6. Thou shalt not have more than four grandchildren. Blessed are they that leave no more than two grandchildren. (The Vatican has yet to approve this one.)
  7. Thou shalt not grant priority to those who preach about climate change. Their hearts are in the right place, but their minds are focused on a lesser issue. Change is where it’s at.

Ed: While we’re at it, we can offer an 11th commandment. It’s called the Spitzer Amendment, “Don’t get caught.”

Energy News – Why CES’ does not do many original blogs

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Just type in Energy News into any Search Engine like Yahoo, MSN or Google and you turn up thousands of pages. 5 entries off the first page are listed below:

http://www.forbes.com/energy/2006/11/27/china-india-energy-biz-energy-cx_pm_1127energy_slide.html

 China and India are Asia’s two largest emerging economies. Both have large populations, industrializing economies and rising living standards and energy consumption. This slide show compares energy production, consumption and efficiency of both countries head-to-head and the environmental issues both are confronting as a result of their growing energy use. The numbers are drawn form official statistics, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Energy Agency and are the latest available full-year estimates. The energy intensity comparison is based on purchasing power parity conversion rates.

 Forbes of course pointing out that China and Indian will pretty much kill off our species. 

http://www.green-energy-news.com/arch/nrgs2008/20080016.html

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February 22, 2008 – Vol.12 No. 48

A SOLAR POWERED WORLD?

Arizona Public Service (APS) has announced plans to build a 280-megawatt concentrating solar power plant in the desert 70 miles southwest of Phoenix. The Solana Generating Station, if it were operating today, would be the single largest solar power plant on the planet. Solana, with its thermal energy storage, will be able to operate 24/7 providing power for 70,000 homes.

As big and impressive as it sounds it’s only a tiny fraction of what’s possible: According to the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC), the energy potential from sunlight striking the world’s deserts is 700 times that of the world’s primary energy demand today. Further, solar power generated in the world’s deserts could reach 90 percent of the world’s population. Australia, Asia, Africa, North and South America all have expansive deserts. By satellite measurement there are 13,500,000 square miles (35 million square kilometers) of hot, dry, sunlit desert on the planet.

Like the APS project, solar thermal power generation is the best option for the world’s deserts. Not only is it a time-tested technology that can provide low cost power, cooling water from the plants can be used for desalinization of sea water. (Energy from clean sources is a major global need right now. So is fresh water.)

Further, made of glass and steel there are no supply constraints to solar thermal power generation equipment as with purified silicon needed for photovoltaics.

The TREC concept, known as DESERTEC, is to build solar power plants in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and build power lines – a Euro-Supergrid – connecting the plants to Europe.

  http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/

Let’s see that would be Africa getting ripped off by Europe AGAIN!

Alternative Energy News

News » Energy | Biofuels | Environment | Hydrogen | Solar | Transportation | Wind

Alternative Energy News

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The Most Efficient Washing Machines Of 2008

March 10th, 2008 · 1 Comment

lg-steam-washer-energystar.jpg

At MetaEfficient, I evaluate appliances based on a number of factors, namely: energy efficiency, effectiveness, reliability, and price. This holds true for washing machines, because all of these factors need to be considered and weighed against each other (I’d also like to include lifecycle analysis, but  there’s no information available for washers). For raw efficiency data, one can turn to the Energy Star ratings, to work out which machines use the least amount of energy and water overall. Based on the Energy Star data, the most efficient washing machines for 2008 are made by LG Electronics and Kenmore.

Three LG washers received the best Energy Star ratings, and four Kenmore washers followed very close behind the LG machines. These ratings are based on the Modified Energy Factor (MEF) which is a way to compare the relative efficiency of different units of clothes washers (higher is better). The second factor is the Water Factor which is the number of gallons per cycle per cubic foot that a washing machine uses (lower is better). Here is a listing of the highest rated washing machines according the February 2008 update:

This site has a real cool video on its home page, but I could not get it to load up on our Blog. The article is from a sidebar. Please look at the video though. 

http://energy.sourceguides.com/news.shtml

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Environment: THE ENERGY CRUNCH AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

Rising fuel costs mean lost growth for some

Asterio Takesy


Few places have been hard hit by the recent rise in energy costs as the Pacific islands countries (PICs). While the impacts are felt around the world, islands societies are already on a financial razor’s edge—rising fuel costs being more than many can bear.Making matters worse is that an estimated 90 percent of total electricity generation and the fuel for the entire sea, land and air transport in our region comes directly from fossil fuels. In many of our members, fossil fuels represent a full 100 percent across the board.It is estimated that for every $10 increase in the price of a barrel of crude oil, national incomes for the Federated States of Micronesia and Kiribati reduce by over 4% and by at least 2% in Tonga, Tuvalu, Palau and the Solomon Islands. Considering the price of oil has increased by approximately $45 a barrel since 2002, this translates into at least five years of lost growth for some islands countries.Consider also the impact on the balance of trade. It is estimated that fuel imports are now triple the value of merchandise exports in Kiribati, Samoa and Federated States of Micronesia. In the case of Fiji, its combined export earnings in 2006 from three of the country’s major industries, gold, sugar and textiles, only accounted for two-thirds of the country’s total fuel import bill.

All this points to the continuing need for the development of renewable energy resources throughout the Pacific region (and the world). PICs have the highest renewable energy potential per capita in the world.

We are in the midst of the largest ocean on earth with its unlimited wave, tidal and ocean thermal energy. The tropical wind is always blowing and we are along the Pacific “Rim of Fire” with its potential for geothermal power generation. So why hasn’t adoption of renewables happened more quickly?

Let’s see the Islands of the Pacific have not moved ahead with renewables and alternative generation BECAUSE they are in the stranglehold of the Energy Corporation. Man what a surprise

 Again, the above is a side from:http://www.islandsbusiness.com

And finally (wipes brow, takes long drink of water and fans face): 

http://www.newenergytimes.com/news/2008/NET27.htm#FROMED

net25.jpg

EDITORIALS AND OPINION

1. Editorial: Will India Surprise the U.S. (Again)?

By Steven B. Krivit

A recent lecture tour by Michael McKubre of SRI International, Mahadeva Srinivasan, former associate director of the physics group at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre on low energy nuclear reaction research, and me found an interested and receptive audience at the center and other science institutions in India. 

But what’s happening in the U.S. and other more developed nations with LENR research? Rumors reaching New Energy Times suggest that people in the U.S. government are taking notice – but quietly. A few of them now have active LENR research programs.

Only one U.S. government group, the Navy’s SPAWAR San Diego (a different entity from the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.), has published LENR papers (19) and does research openly. Some of the other government groups recently received internal funding to begin research, but they have been told not to publish.

Is this a good thing for science? For the U.S.? Probably not. On the other hand, the science community in India has come to terms with the fact that it missed out on 14 years of research on LENR. Will science leaders in the U.S. and other nations take notice of India’s newfound interest?

Glowing articles about the LENR revival in India have been published in Nature India and New Energy Times. However, no journal papers from India have been published recently.

In 1974, researchers at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Trombay, India, not-so-quietly unveiled a not-so-little secret: They had developed nuclear weapons technology. U.S. intelligence and the rest of the world was caught by surprise. Will India surprise the U.S. again with LENR?

 The U.S. may take a wait-and-see attitude with LENR research. The rest of the Western World also may wait. India is not likely to wait. Its people cannot afford to take precious food and burn it in their cars. Their hydro power is maxxed out. Their coal, while plentiful and providing 67 percent of India’s total electrical power, is low-grade and dirty.

Think pollution is bad in Los Angeles? You ain’t seen nothin’ if you haven’t been to a major city in India. They don’t have enough uranium for their current-generation fission reactors, and according to Rajagopala Chidambaram, principal scientific adviser to the government of India, it will take at least another 20 years to bring the next-generation reactors online to take advantage of India’s thorium reserves

Smart people in India understand science, technology, and innovation. And they have ambition and necessity, key ingredients for technological growth.

For those of you who had the patience to read this far Low Energy Nuclear Research has been know as Cold Fusion in the past.

Taylorville Energy Center Is A Bad Idea – What are we to do when our protectors betray us

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Where I come from most Environmentalists and Energy Advocates would be filing lawsuit after lawsuit against any Toxic Deep Well Injection Site proposed in their area. Yet in an amazing sellout the organizations that could stop this are ADVOCATING For It. This is a sad and tragic turn of events.

This from Howard Learner, Executive Director of the Environmental Law and Policy Center had this to say:

http://www.elpc.org/news/statementfuturegensiteannouncement.php

elpc_logo_protecting.gif

ELPC > Newsroom

Statement of Howard A. Learner on

 FutureGen Site Announcement

Contact: Shannon Rooney(312) 795-3720
Srooney@elpc.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 18, 2007

 

STATEMENT OF HOWARD A. LEARNER
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ENVIRONMENTAL LAW & POLICY CENTER
FUTUREGEN SITE ANNOUNCEMENT

CHICAGO, IL – Illinois scored a major victory with today’s announcement that Mattoon, Illinois has been selected as the first site for the experimental FutureGen “clean coal” plant. It is designed to test an innovative carbon capture and sequestration approach to burn coal without emitting carbon dioxide pollution into the atmosphere.

“Illinois is now positioned to be an advanced clean energy technology leader. The proposed FutureGen technology, if it works, is the Holy Grail enabling the economic boost from using Illinois coal while avoiding global warming pollution that harms our environment,” said Howard A. Learner, Executive Director of the Environmental Law & Policy Center. “We look forward to continuing to work as a member of the FutureGen coalition to help this project succeed.”

The FutureGen plant is expected to begin operation in the fall of 2012.

The Environmental Law & Policy Center (ELPC) is the Midwest’s leading environmental, legal advocacy and eco-innovation organization. For more information go to www.elpc.org.

                                                                            ###

And then there’s this Letter To the Editor from Dave Kolata, Executive Director of the Citizens Utility Board, published in Springfield’s State Journal-Register.  It’s bad enough that he publishes this in the Illinois State Capital, but their web site claims he published something similar, in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, though their web site refused to give up the actual text.

 www.citizensutilityboard.org

February 28, 2008

State needs to get on with clean coal plans

We applaud your editorial supporting the Taylorville Energy Center (“A clean coal plant may yet be built in state,” Feb. 7). We agree wholeheartedly that despite the disappointing loss of FutureGen, Illinois still has a chance to show leadership on clean coal.

Using cutting-edge technology that gasifies coal to remove pollutants, the privately financed Taylorville project would be the cleanest coal plant in the world, dramatically reducing the exposure to harmful environmental triggers of asthma and lung cancer. At the same time, this $2.5 billion facility would create thousands of jobs, provide Illinois with a needed source of power, and reduce consumers’ energy costs by using coal instead of expensive natural gas to produce energy.

Indeed, the Taylorville plant could provide a badly needed boost to the state’s coal industry. Illinois is home to the second largest coal reserves in the nation, but with FutureGen off the table and our state having recently suffered the shutdown of the Crown II and Monterey mines, the Illinois coal industry needs a shot in the arm that only Taylorville can provide.

As your editorial points out, last year legislation that would have allowed the project to proceed got caught bogged down in Springfield and no final action was taken. Unlike FutureGen, the Taylorville plant is 100 percent within our state’s control. We urge the Illinois General Assembly to act quickly to secure our state’s energy future while doing right by consumers, the economy and the environment.

Phil Gonet President  Illinois Coal Association

David Kolata Executive Director Citizens Utility Board

Michael Carrigan President, AFL-CIO

Angela Tin  Director Environmental Programs American Lung Associationof Illinois


I mean really, you want to threaten downstate aquifers so the air can stay clean?  Where is the outrage here. And what is Angela Tin thinking? That us downstaters will trade Lung Cancer for Stomach Cancer when we drink polluted water? This is crazy, but even the Sierra Club gets into the act >.http://illinois.sierraclub.org/ >

December 18, 2007 Sierra Club Statement on FutureGen Siting
No New Coal Plants Until Technology Proven

Statement of Bruce Nilles, Director of the Sierra Club’s National Coal Campaign, in response to today’s announcement that Mattoon in East Central Illinois was picked as the site for the $1.8 billion FutureGen project — an experimental coal plant that would capture and store its carbon.

“If coal is to remain a part of our energy future, it must be mined responsibly, burned cleanly and not contribute to global warming. FutureGen will allow the coal industry to determine whether or not it is technologically and financially feasible to continue to burn coal without accelerating global warming

“It will still be years before we see if the highly experimental FutureGen project is successful in capturing and safely storing its carbon emissions–until then it is critical that no additional coal plants are permitted and constructed in the United States. We need to continue to invest in the demonstrated clean energy alternatives that are available today and don’t contribute to global warming, like wind power and energy efficiency.  

“We can expand our energy choices beyond the limited, unhealthy options of the past. We should be offering incentives for alternatives to coal that can meet our energy needs and save us money while boosting the economy, improving public health and combating global warming. Illinois and many other states are already reaping the benefits of transitioning to cleaner energy. While we continue to look for cleaner ways to use existing energy sources, we should also be investing and supporting alternative, renewable sources of energy and increasing efficiency.”

 ###

  

>This is heinous. There is no other word for State based groups selling out their own.
>

Taylorville Energy Center Is A Really Bad Idea – Deep Well Injection (DWI) is not good in Illinois

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First a slight mea culpa. A gentleman from an Advance Gasification Publication emailed me and took me to task for being a “know nothing” blogger. Is that great or what! He pointed out that my description of Gasification was flawed. On each Blog I put up all kinds of site addresses like Wikipedia and others so that people can “click and read” about any subject I Blog about if they wanted to. I do not view myself as a babysitter. Google being what it is (or any other search engine for that matter) I don’t even really have to put up the links. A reader can just type in the subject and get a list sources for their own selves. I do it to make it easy for people to READ about what I am writing about and to show the sources I am using.

If you go to the site below you can see the gentleman in all his indignant fury:

http://gasification-igcc.blogspot.com/

For the record the hydrogen to run the plant come from electrolysis like catalytic effect from steam heated in part by the coal. Also for the record this is a dumb way to generate electricity, almost as dumb using coal to make steam. Solar is more direct and more efficient than this crap ever could be. Also for the record, I try to write for the normal Joes and Jackies in the world. The only thing they care about is that the “lights come on when they flip the switch” and the health of their children. It’s the health and welfare of their children and their grand children where this whole project falls apart.

Back to DWI. Illinois is a real bad place to put a Commercial Toxic Waste Deep Well Injection Site and that is what Tenaska is trying to do. The Energy Portion of the Project is In One Sense is a smokescreen. If they get their financial way and get around regulation of the site By the ICC By declaring it an Independent Power producer AND pass Legislation Mandating the Purchase of the Power by Illinois Utilities then they could make a fortune. More on that later. Trust me much more. But lets say, for the moment that RATE BASING a 2 Billion $$$ Power Plant ain’t happening and that a 2 Billion $$$ Power Plant will be “Too Expensive To Meter” What’s the game here?

There are only 5 Commercial Toxic Waste DWI’s in the nation:

http://www.ehso.com/cssepa/tsdfdeepwells.php

 deepwells.bmp

 

As you can see they all sit atop spent or partially spent rock trapped oil fields. Though there is no evidence that these sites are fool proof they at least have the intellectual possibility of succeeding. Most of the other Non-Commercial Toxic Waste DWI sites that are usually operated to get rid of human waste and wastewater have proved troublesome at best.

http://www.stopthetoxicwells.com/

http://eelink.net/EJ/well.html

 

Their failure rate for something that was supposed, “to solve the waste problems” in the US have not worked out so well.

When you look at Illinois, which has 3 major rivers the Mississippi, the Wabash and the Illinois, and a soft coal-filled  Center:

 

herrin_coal_map.jpg

 

then putting a Commercial Toxic DWI right in its center seems unjustified. But think about this for a moment once it is open who else might dump their Toxic stuff there as well? It is widely rumored in the Environmental and Energy communties that the only reason that Governor Jim Doyle of Wisconsin signed as a “supporting Governor” is that he believes he could ship some of his States sequestered carbon here. This is what a proper sequestration system in North Dakota looks like:

m-24_weyburn-co2.jpg

www.netl.doe.gov/…/core_rd/mmv/41149.html

 

Build a PIPELINE to the nearest  stone encased oilfield. Hint: It’s not in Illinois.

 

Taylorville Energy Center Is A Very Bad Idea – Pump Poison where they can’t monitor it

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FutureGen was a bad idea because it made Deep Well Injection (DWI) look like a possibility in Central Illinois. And get this it cost NOTHING. The Government didn’t spend a dime nor did the Energy Industry. But, it accomplished so much. FutureGen:

1. Got the citizens excited and made the appearance of their acceptance.

2. Got the State of Illinois hooked into something that does not exist…Clean Coal Technology.

3. Produced studies that claim that DWI will work in Central Illinois – its the Sandstone…its the sand stone..its.

4. Glossed over the toxics produced and the huge amounts of water it will consume.

5. Coopted the Energy and Environmental Groups

6. Paved the way for the real threat which is in Decatur and Taylorville in a classic bait and switch move.

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS230346+31-Jan-2008+BW20080131

Taylorville Energy Center Receives Final Air Permit, Environmental Appeals Board Denies Sierra Club Appeal
             Project Can Begin Once Illinois Lawmakers Act
TAYLORVILLE, Ill.--(Business Wire)--In a critical milestone for the development of clean coal
technologies, the U.S. Environmental Appeals Board denied the Sierra
Club's appeal of the air permit granted to the Taylorville Energy
Center. The project is now poised to move forward once enabling
legislation is passed by the Illinois General Assembly.
   On June 5, 2007, following a two year application process, the
Illinois EPA granted the first U.S. air quality permit for a
commercially-sized Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) power
generating facility to the Taylorville Energy Center (TEC), a $2
billion, 630-megawatt project being developed by Christian County
Generation LLC (CCG).
 
 

In CES’ last blog I covered what was in Coal because gasification uses huge amounts of it. Why? because gasification is only interested in the Hydrogen it can get out of the stuff, plus many of the elements they won’t use are flammable

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasification

thus they contribute to the BTWs in coal when it is burned. As a result they will need 2 or 3 times the amount of coal to produce the same amount of Electricity. Logically then they are going to produce at least 2 to 3 times the toxics and probably more. In the past, gasification sites just dumped all that nasty stuff on the ground. That has produced a fair amount of Superfund Sites and the irony is that one of them is in Taylorville. The second irony is that that site hasn’t even been cleaned up yet, and Tenaska wants to start another one.

But these people think its just a dandy idea:

http://www.cleancoalillinois.com/tec.html

While these people talk out of both sides of their mouths:

http://www.tenaska.com/newsArchive.aspx

Tenaska Proposes Nation’s First New Conventional Coal-fueled Power Plant to Capture Carbon Dioxide – February 19, 2008

Captured CO2 would be sequestered in the Permian Basin and help recover more than $1 billion of West Texas oil annually.

Tenaska, Inc. is developing a site near Sweetwater, Texas, upon which to construct a technologically advanced coal-fueled electric generating plant able to capture up to 90 percent of the carbon dioxide (CO2) that would otherwise enter the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide would be sold for use in enhancing oil production in the Permian Basin, resulting in geologic storage.    

Did they coopt the Environmental and the Energy Groups who are supposed to stop this stuff? You bet your jammies they did:

   EAB questioned Sierra Club's arguments given the organization's
numerous past statements supportive of IGCC technology:
   For a number of years, Sierra Club has argued that IGCC technology
should be adopted as the best available control technology for
limiting air pollutant emissions from the burning of coal to produce
electrical power.

The Chinese Clean Our Economic Clock – While we work on stuff that does not work

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While we try to bury our waste through dangerous deep well injection, the Chinese work on stuff that really advances the New Energy Economy.

http://www.terradaily.com/2007/080228143924.7nvde7oj.html

Public transport to go electric in gas-rich Qatar

 The gas-rich Gulf state of Qatar on Thursday launched a public transport project that will use electric buses and taxis in a bid to cut air pollution. The battery-powered vehicles are being built by a China-based developer for Mowasalat, Qatar’s public transport operator, and will enter service soon, the organisation’s business development manager Ahmad al-Ansari said.“The developer is working now on technical issues such as increasing the speed of the vehicle, extending the battery range and reducing the mass of the vehicle,” he told AFP.The vehicles will have their batteries recharged in the company’s depot during the first phase of the scheme until charging stations are set up around the capital Doha, he said.“We endeavour to develop technology with the aim of providing services that will bring environmental and economic benefits,” Mowasalat chairman Jassem al-Sulaiti said at a news conference to announce the project.

Mowasalat will also have the patent for the new product and will market it worldwide, he added.

The government-owned transport network recently inaugurated a taxi service using cars powered by liquefied natural gas which Qatar has abundant amounts of — 15 percent of the world’s proven reserves.

FutureGen Is A Very Bad Idea – sounds like ideas from the past

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How have humans gotten rid of their nasty waste in the past? Well it has always been out of sight out of mind. In the early cities they threw stuff in the river and made piles of it “out in the country side”.

My 2 most favorite modern examples are: 1) the Steel Barrels of Radioactive waste tossed in the ocean off  San Francisco. Barrels that would- get this – never rust.

http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/farallon/radwaste.html

Farallon Island Radioactive Waste Dump

“There is intense public and media interest in this issue, and we need to have the best information available when we respond to inquiries or participate in discussions on the issue of radioactive waste dumped near the Farallones.”–Barbara Boxer; United States Congress (D-California). June, 1990

Issue

More than 47,800 drums and other containers of low-level radioactive waste were dumped onto the ocean floor west of San Francisco between 1946 and 1970; many of these are in the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. 

and 2) The “reef” they tried to build out of used rubber automobile tires off the cost of Florida which has created a oceanic desert devoid of any life. It is now being cleaned up by volunteer divers.

Idea of making reef from tires

 backfires

Four decades later, Florida now considers removing up to 2 million tires

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A mile offshore from this city’s high-rise condos and spring-break bars lie as many as 2 million old tires, strewn across the ocean floor — a white-walled, steel-belted monument to good intentions gone awry.The tires were unloaded there in 1972 to create an artificial reef that could attract a rich variety of marine life, and to free up space in clogged landfills. But decades later, the idea has proved a huge ecological blunder.Little sea life has formed on the tires. Some of the tires that were bundled together with nylon and steel have broken loose and are scouring the ocean floor across a swath the size of 31 football fields. Tires are washing up on beaches. Thousands have wedged up against a nearby natural reef, blocking coral growth and devastating marine life. 

 070216_tirereef_hmed_1p_hmedium.jpg

So what does that have to do with FutureGen?

Thursday, February 7, 2008


THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER


 


 

FutureGen developers

hope to revive plan


 

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS____________

MATTOON — Developers hop­ing to build an experimental central Illinois power plant

say they’ll try to work with the White House and the Department of Energy to get

the project back on track.

The power and coal companies known as the FutureGen Alliance also will work with Congress

to get money for the $1.8 billion project, said Paul Thompson, chairman of the developers’

group.‘We always want to keep the door open,” FutureGen chief exec­utive officer Mike Mudd said

Wednesday after two days of al­liance board meetings in Mattoon. “If that does not come to a

fruitful conclusion, we will work with Con­gress.”

Those talks aren’t happening

right now, Mudd and Thompson said. Thompson said he requested early in January to meet

with Ener­gy Secretary Samuel Bodman but has gotten no response.

Bodman, meanwhile, faced ques­tioning from Congress on Wednes­day about the agency’s

decision last week to pull out of the project, tak­ing with it its commitment to fund three-quarters

of the cost.

A DOE spokeswoman said the agency was willing to talk with the FutureGen Alliance about

its plan to restructure FutureGen, which it an­nounced last week. The agency has so far asked

for industry feedback on what it says could be several power plants across the country.

‘While the department continues to maintain open lines of communi­cation on this important

 matter, we believe the decision to restructure

FutureGen is the best path forward to demonstrate and commercialize advanced carbon capture

 and stor­age technology,” spokeswoman Julie Ruggiero said in an e-mail.

She did not address Thompson’s request for a meeting with Bod­man.

FutureGen is intended to prove a power plant can use coal to gener­ate electricity while

capturing the carbon dioxide in the fuel and stor­ing it underground to keep it out of the

atmosphere.

Government and industry, until last week, had worked together, with the DOE covering 74 percent

of the cost and the FutureGen Al­liance covering the other 26 per­cent and building the plant.

The alliance chose Mattoon in December over three other sites — Tuscola, just north of Mattoon,

andtwo sites in Texas. The project would create thousands of jobs dur­ing construction, and 150

once the plant opens.The DOE and the alliance say they talked about the project’s es­calating costs

 much of last year.

When announced by the govern­ment in 2003, FutureGen was billed as a $950 million project,

meaning the Energy Department obligation was $800 million.

The current price tag, the al­liance says, is due to the rising cost of building materials. (emphasis added)

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Well this is the ultimate out of sight out of mind solution. The form of carbon seqestration that they have proposed to use is dangerous. Deep Well Injection (DWI, all pun intended) may work in some instances. The best proof for DWI is when pumping the poisons into an already proven and toxic well like a deep and depleted oil field. Other than that DWI is a total crap shoot.

http://www.pollutionissues.com/Ho-Li/Injection-Well.html

Injection wells use high-pressure pumps to inject liquid wastes into under-ground geologic formations (e.g., sandstone or sedimentary rocks with high porosity). Many geologists believe that wastes may be isolated from drinking water aquifers when injected between impermeable rock strata. However, injection wells are still controversial and many scientists are concerned that leaks from these wells may contaminate groundwater. As of 1994, twenty-two out of 172 deep injection wells contaminated water supplies. 

This applies to the Taylorville Energy Project as well, but more on that later. Shouldn’t we really be asking ourselves why we would be reverting to Gasification, an ancient and obsolete technique, instead of solar, wind, hydro and tidal power. Gasification presents a serious problem. But first what is in coal that makes it obsolete and then why gasification is dangerous.

FutureGen Is A Very Bad Idea – At least as formulated now

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As I have said many times, collaboration between Environmentalists and Industry is never a good idea because the Environmentalists have to sacrifice some of their integrity to participate. We have no time for that now. Every little bit of the Earth that is unsullied is now sacred.

www.futuregenalliance.org

www.futuregenforillinois.com

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FutureGen


How can a project that has 2 of its own web sites and a Wikipedia listing be so wrong? Well let’s see COST?

Officials vow to

 not give up on

FutureGen

Durbin blames politics for decision to scrap plant

By DAVID MERCERTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CHAMPAIGN — Officials promised Wednes­day to fight the Department of Energy’s decision to scrap a futuristic, low-pollution power plant planned for central Illinois, but the leader of the state’s congressional delegation seemed resigned to its end.Sen. Dick Durbin said he hopes to fund the $1.8 billion FutureGen power plant through ear­marks in the federal budget, but wasn’t opti­mistic it would work.“If the administration doesn’t support it, we’ve seen that this president is willing to use his veto pen over and over again,” Durbin said. “Without the support of the administration, it’s an uphill struggle.”Durbin spoke not long after Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said publicly what he’d told members of Illinois’ congressional delegation and Illinois economic development officials in a private meeting Tuesday.Rather than spend money on FutureGen, which was to have been built by a consortium of coal and power companies in Mattoon using mainly federal funds, the DOE plans to put its fi­nances into a handful of projects around the country that would demonstrate the capture and burial of carbon dioxide from commercial power plants.“This restructuring … is an all-around better deal for Americans,” Bodman, an Illinois native, said in making the announcement to scuttle the program.The department will now solicit industry ap­plications for participation in the new projects. The idea is for the government to pay for build­ing the carbon capture and storage facilities and industry to build the modern coal-burning power plant. Each project would be designed to capture 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, the lead­ing greenhouse gas linked to global warming, of­ficials said.The coal and power companies planning to build the plant, known as the FutureGen Al­liance, issued a statement saying it “remains committed to keeping FutureGen on track” but it was unclear how that would be possible without the federal funding.FutureGen was envisioned as a unique re­search project that would trigger development of a virtually pollution-free coal plant where carbon dioxide emissions would be captured and buried deep beneath the earth.


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For a listing of the last ten AP postings on FutureGen go here.

Click on the Length of Search box and pick Archive, the type in FutureGen in the submit Box and click submit.

The Project escalated in cost from 750,000 million $$$ to 1.8 billion $$$ in a little less than 5 years. That is more than enough to build a “new generation” nuke on the same site. But think about this. What would it actually cost. We all know that typical Utility Construction Projects come in with at least 20% cost over runs and sometime as high as 40% is acceptable. Which means that the real cost would likely hover at just under 3 billion $$$. Can anyone say Too Cheap To Meter???

Acciona Energy Of North America – Causes happiness and sadness

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I am very happy and proud that someone from Springfield would be in the forefront of financing nonburning forms of alternative energy. The lady is amazing. I am sad that the project is in Nevada and not Illinois. But the saddest part for me is that the company she works for is based in Spain and they don’t manufature their products in Springfield. When ever will US companies wake up to the fact that we are being left out of the New Economy?

http://www.sj-r.com/business/stories/25745.asp

Published Sunday, February 24, 2008

Springfield native finds energy in projects

A 20-year career in financing of energy projects wasn’t exactly what SUSAN DONATH NICKEY had in mind while attending high school at the former Ursuline Academy in Springfield in the mid-1970s. That career — including her role in a $266 million financing pack­age for the world’s third-largest solar en­ergy plant in Nevada — has landed her on a    couple of nation­al lists in the past year of women executives who have helped lead the way in devel­opment of wind, biofuels and solar energy. Last month, Women’s eNews, an independent online news serv­ice, named Nickey one of “21 Leaders for the 21st Century” on energy issues.

 nickey-3421.jpg

“I’m very optimistic after watch­ing this industry through a lot of stops and starts,” said Nickey, now based in Chicago as chief financial officer for Acciona Energy North America.     The company, based in Spain, world’s largest developers of wind, solar and other alternative energy projects.Nickey has helped arrange a va­riety of private-equity financing for alternative energy projects during four years with the company, but the commercial-scale Nevada Solar One is among the largest and most ambitious.The plant relies on a network of 180,000 solar panels covering the space of approximately 200 foot­ball fields to supply power to 14,000 Nevada homes. It took about a year-and-a-half to com­plete construction.

Nickey said Nevada is among a growing list of states, including Illinois, that have mandated in­creased use of alternative fuels. Traditional utilities in Nevada also were given incentives for long-term contracts for purchases of solar power.

Of course, Nevada has other ad­vantages when it comes to solar energy.

“The sun shines a lot there,” Nickey said.

Nickey, whose father, Robert, still lives in the Springfield neigh­borhood where she grew up, grad­uated from Ursuline Academy in 1978 and the University of Notre Dame in 1983. She soon found herself in banking and energy fi­nancing after obtaining her gradu­ate degree from Georgetown Uni­versity.

“Early on, I had opportunities to work on energy projects, and that made the transition easy when the independent power industry began to develop,” said Nickey, who added that she returns to Spring­field as often as possible.

On March 6, she’ll be among the panelists at the Union League Club of Chicago on ways to “Make Green from Green.” The Charter Financial Analysts of Chicago and the CFA (Cultivating Female Am­bition) advisory group are spon­soring the event.

Long stretches of gloomy weath­er, especially in winter, make the Midwest a tougher sell for solar power. But Nickey said she has been encouraged by the steady progress of wind energy, including in Illinois.

Acciona also is among the world’s largest manufacturers of wind turbines.

“It’s the states that are driving the growth in renewable energy… they keep adding mandatory (en­ergy) portfolio standards,” Nickey said.

“There’s always been a large group of European lenders active in the business, and they still are years and years ahead of us. Now, there are a lot of equity investors that see that growth her

Tim Landis is the business editor of The State Journal-Register. He can be reached at tim.landis@sj-r.com or 788-1536.

And What Has Susan Financed? Well lets see 300 acres of Solar Panels.

 http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2007/03/nevada_solar_on.html
nevada_one_aerial.jpg

nevada_solar_one_with_people.jpg