The Power Generation Blog: September 2009

Ups and Downs for China's Wind-Power Program

There is some mixed news out of China for renewable energy supporters. Recently, China has expressed its intention to have renewable energy meet 15% of its energy needs by 2020, which would double its 2005 percentage. However, due to its massive size and creaking infrastructure, many environmental benefits may be lost.

Last year, up to 30% of China’s wind-power capacity was unconnected to the energy grid. Additionally, due to wind energy’s natural unreliability, the country is producing more new coal power plants that can meet and uncovered demand left by failure in the energy grid or wind-power generation. Therefore, if the grid is functioning poorly or if there is simply little or no wind-power being generated, then coal power will still fulfill China’s energy needs. Since coal power plants have a length start-up time, it seems inefficient to use them as a backup source of power for wind-power turbines, though.

Another hurdle facing China’s widespread adoption of renewable energy is its seemingly ancient power grid. If it wants to utilize fully renewable energy sources, it will have to reinvent its power grid utilizing smart grid technology (which we’ve gone over here). By having precise power allocation and management, China’s power distributors can manage the existing energy more efficiently thereby reducing the overall cost and strain on the nation’s energy production.

China’s seeming difficulty with implementing renewable energy highlights troubles that other nations are facing with renewable energy. Besides necessitating redundant power production facilities, there is a high cost for constructing the new renewable energy plants. In addition, many people perceive renewable energy projects as costing jobs by closing down existing plants only to replace them with more efficient plants. However, the opposite is the case. Many plans to increase renewable energy production have deadlines well into the future. Within a few years, we will all have a much clearer picture of how the renewable energy movement will play out.

Another Sayano-Shushenskaya Update

After news broke of possible corruption that lead to the tragedy at Sayano-Shushenskaya, Prime Minister Putin has ordered a thorough investigation of the accident. On 17 September, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin accused current and former managers at the power plant of committing "fraudulent schemes" to gain money for the plant. The Deputy PM said that higher-ups at Sayano-Shushenskaya created fake companies that then gained money to do work on the plant. Of course, this accusation--even if proven true--does not positively link the corruption with the failure of the plant, but it does provide a particularly troubling view of the state of the Russian power industry.

Prime Minister Putin has now proposed, besides a thorough investigation of the Sayano-Shushenskaya tragedy, the installation of so-called "black boxes," which can monitor power plants and provide critical data concerning their viability and safety.

The Governator Agrees With Us

We made a post yesterday about how green energy creates jobs (and creates more jobs than fossil fuel energy). Well, in an executive order yesterday, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made a parallel point about protectionism. Responding to the legislature's wanting to require a large part of its renewable energy to come from in-state, he said,

I am totally against protectionist policies because it never works.

Schwarzenegger offered as support the observation that California gets other resources and products such as water and automobiles from outside California--so why not energy? Protectionist policies do have a historically poor track record dating from the recent banking meltdown to China's and North Korea's historically heavily protectionist policies. It makes sense for a free market conservative such as Schwarzenegger to advocate against protectionism, and we have to agree with him with regard to renewable energy.

Will Green Energy Create or Cut Jobs?

A recent report, which was based partly on research by the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney, was just released by Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC). It states that a shift toward renewable energies and away from fossil fuels could create more than 2.7 million (extra) jobs. Besides the increase over fossil fuels in job growth, a shift toward renewable energies could help combat global climate change.

The report says, in part, “A switch from coal to renewable electricity generation will not just avoid 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions, but will create 2.7 million more jobs by 2030 than if we continue business as usual.” Rather than eliminating jobs--as some commentators believe the ramping down of fossil fuel power generation--the report concludes that jobs will actually increase. By investing money and development in solar, wind, tidal, and biomass, two grave problems can be addressed simultaneously. For instance, after the automobile industry, the wind turbine industry is currently the second-largest steel consumer in Germany. The study projects that jobs in power generation will rise from about 9 million today to more than 11 million by 2030; it projects renewables jobs will rise from 1.9 million to 6.9 million. On a related note, it projects that if things continue as they have been, that jobs in coal power generation will fall by about half a million, to 8.6 million by 2030.

The report goes on to say that in 2008, for the first time, both the United States and the European Union added more power generating capacity from renewable energy than from conventional sources such as gas, coal, oil, and nuclear power. The report adds ammunition to supporters of sustainable energy and helps to deflate opponents of sustainable energy who criticize the movement on the grounds that it will stifle job growth.

Sayano-Shushenskaya: The Final Report is Coming

We haven’t touched upon the Sayano-Shushenskaya disaster in a few weeks for lack of new news coming out of Russia. Yesterday, there was an interesting story that touched upon what authorities think may have caused the tragedy at the hydroelectric plant.

Nikolai Kutin, head of Rostekhnadzor, the Russian state technical standards oversight body, said that the cause of the disaster at Sayano-Shushenskaya were technological in nature. The automatic systems failed that were supposed to assist in operating the plant. These operational shortcomings combined with the safety mechanisms’ failure to activate resulted in the disaster. The hydrogenerating unit that failed was modernized this past March, yet it did not have a back-up power system. The reason why a back-up was not included in the plan is “unclear,” says Kutin.

Rostekhnadzor is still making its investigation and it expects to give safety recommendations very soon for both existing plants and those that are under construction. Later this week, the commission’s signed report will have a more full litany of reasons for the plant disaster and the (apparently long list of) names of those it considers responsible. Kutin has said he hopes for new staff to be implemented at Sayano-Shushenskaya.

It is expected for the restoration and redesign of the Sayano-Shushenskaya plant to cost much more than 40 billion rubles ($1.3 billion).

It’s still unclear to us how exactly the plant disaster occurred. We’re looking forward to the more detailed report. Hopefully it won’t be comprised of fingerpointing and obfuscation, which is a quagmire you can get sunk in easily when you’re dealing with such a large bureaucratic body.

Friday Links

Argus, an international pricing agency, has launched its weekly coverage of Russia's electricity and power generation fuel markets.
China's August power generation is its fastest-growing in 15 months.
Tampa, FL has completed five new 60 megawatt natural gas power units.
USEC, the United States' only provider of enriched uranium for nuclear power, signed a $1.2 billion deal with Exelon Generation.
Exxon to build a 500 megawatt plant in Nigeria.

How are we going to get safe, fissionable material for nuclear power?

In news related a previous story we wrote about concerning Russia’s growing acquisition of uranium, there’s a new article out of Washington from the State Department’s Bureau of International Information Programs. The United States and Russia have reaffirmed their commitment to disposing of at least 34 metric tons of surplus weapons-grade plutonium. This quantity is enough, says the International Atomic Energy Agency, to create over 4,000 nuclear weapons. This reaffirmation comes on the heels of this last July’s Moscow Summit at which Presidents Obama and Medvedev reached an agreement to continue forward with the 2000 Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA).

The PMDA calls for--among other things--the United States to assist Russia with its plutonium disposal efforts. Both countries plan on using a strategy that calls for converting weapons-grade plutonium into a form of plutonium that is similar to that found in commercial nuclear power generation waste. This plan has a double benefit in that it both disposes of potentially dangerous nuclear material while at the same time creating a fuel source for domestic power generation. The National Nuclear Security Administration’ (NNSA) Fissile Materials Disposition Program is assisting the effort in both the United States and Russia.

In the United States, the disposal and conversion efforts will take place at the newly proposed Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, South Carolina. Construction of the MOX facility is set to begin in 2016 and it is expected to remain operational into the 2030s. The plan is based on European MOX facilities, which have functioned at a high level for the last 30 years. The process at MOX will have three primary steps:

To disassemble the cores of nuclear weapons
To turn fissile material into MOX reactor fuel
To dispose of the liquid waste created during the process

The NNSA Administrator, Thomas D’Agostino, has been quoted as saying that he will focus the agency’s efforts on “secur[ing] all vulnerable nuclear materials around the world within four years, expand[ing] our cooperation with Russia, [and] pursu[ing] new partnerships to lock down these sensitive materials,” which is a truly pragmatic goal that goes a long way toward establishing a more secure and safe world, both with regard to energy production and nuclear weapons. D’Agostino is working off of President Obama’s four-year plan for reducing the threat of nuclear warfare, which includes

Expanding nuclear security cooperation with Russia and other key partners;
Securing nuclear material at the most vulnerable sites worldwide;
Removing and eliminating weapons-usable nuclear materials where possible;
Strengthening international nuclear security standards, practices and safeguards;
Improving international capacity to stop smuggling of nuclear materials, and preventing terrorists and proliferators from using the international market to access dual-use and nuclear weapons-related equipment and technologies.

Ontario Making Strides In Green Energy Initiative

Ontario, Canada is gearing up to make a dent in negative climate change in the province by planning the closure of four coal-burning Ontario Power Generation (OPG) power plants. The plan, part of Ontario’s Green Energy Act of 2009, is taking off four years ahead of its 2014 target. These four coal plant closings are the first in a ten-step transition to Ontario’s generating all of its electricity from green energy.

The four plants are located two each in Nanticoke and Lambton. These plants generate about 2,000 megawatts of OPG’s power capacity. These closings and a previous 2005 closing represent a 40% reduction since 2003 of Ontario’s coal power capacity. Since 2003, Ontario has added more than 4,900 megawatts of natural gas and renewable energy power generation plants. Thus far, the province has converted, refurbished, and built new plants to make progress in the effort.

The OPG is assessing its remaining coal power plants to see if they can be feasibly converted to using fuel sources such as biomass. Its Atikokan Generating Station will be the initial focus of its biomass conversion efforts. OPG hopes to have it converted by 2012.

Ontario has touted its efforts, saying that the closure of the coal plants has resulted in a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions equal to the annual emissions of 7 million automobiles. During the first of this year, the province’s coal production dropped more than 51% and its wind generation rose more than 80% compared to the same period in 2008.

Sayano-Shushenskaya Update

The death toll at Sayano-Shushenskaya, Russia's largest hydro-electric power plant, has reached 69 people. There are over 2,000 workers involved in sorting through the wreckage, looking for survivors, and cleaning up the ruined plant, which failed due to causes unknown, thus far.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Saturday signed a special decree giving 1 million rubles ($32,000) to the family of each worker killed in the tragedy.

The situation in Cheryomushki, the town where Sayano-Shushenskaya is, is so dire that a local official has said the town has banned the sale of hard alcohol due to great levels of binge drinking. He said,

"It was decided so to make people stop drinking. Yes, there was a tragedy, funerals are being held, but the uncontrollable consumption of alcohol will cause a greater damage."

The Nuclear Option

With all the recent focus on so-called green technologies--wind, solar, and other alternative energy sources--we sometimes lose sight of one of the older non-fossil fuel technologies: nuclear power. There are a lot of complicated issues surrounding nuclear power, not the least of which is its being weaponizable. There was an interesting article that was kind of buried in the Friday New York Times that explores some of the issues.

The article is ostensibly about Russia diversifying its uranium sources by securing mining rights in Mongolia. Russia's state-owned power industry formed a joint-venture with Mongolia called Rosatom. The deal is part of a so-called land grab by Russia to ensure it has enough fuel to power its burgeoning nuclear power industry, including enrichment programs. Currently Russia provides about 50% of the fuel for the United States' nuclear plants. Russia is looking to expand its nuclear fuel exports to other nations looking to build up nuclear power, including China, India, and Iran.

Of course, any efforts to supply enriched uranium to countries such as Iran should be met by opposition from the United States and other nations. The US opposes Russia helping Iran build nuclear power plants, but it does not exactly oppose Russia sending Iran fuel. This stance, as the author suggests, seems to leave open the possibility of Iran and other countries working on their own enrichment programs. However, with Russia supplying the US with so much fuel, it is in a difficult position from which to negotiate.

After the scary events of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, Americans seem skeptical of the safety of nuclear power generation. A 1998 paper published the American Nuclear Society concludes that

Nuclear energy is safe, clean, and cheap, and it provides the answers to our energy problems. We must not allow misinformation and scare tactics to influence those making the important energy decisions.

It seems as if the threat of another nuclear meltdown is somewhat outweighed by the positive benefits of nuclear power: It doesn't release the high level of carbon emissions of power plants that rely on fossil fuels. Nuclear power does, however, produce its own uniquely dangerous waste product in the for of spent fuel rods. The US Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in 1982. A later amendment to the act designated Yucca Mountain, Nevada as the permanent repository for nuclear waste products. However, one of the first energy-related actions of the Obama administration was to reject the use of Yucca Mountain for storing nuclear waste.

It's important to be cognizant of the rational pros and cons of nuclear power. However, as our energy needs grow more dire, I'm sure it will seem a more and more desirable option.

The Power Generation Blog