I read a fascinating story in today's New York Times. It sounds like it's ripped straight from the plot of a James Bond film!
An idea, proposed by the Club of Rome (which is billed as "an international group of experts that suggests solutions to global problems") is an idea to power much of northern Africa and Europe. The idea, basically, is to place large mirrors across the Sahara Desert. The mirrors--which are not photovoltaic cells--would collect the sun's energy, which energy would then boil water, which would produce steam to turn turbines thereby generating energy.
The mirrors would be placed in northern Africa, in the embattled Maghreb region. Critics of the plan say that local politics and resource scarcity could negatively impact--or even tank--the plan. However, the story cites the more common bureaucratic red tape as the most likely reason the plan would fail.
This plan is being executed by an entity called Desertec, and it's set to cost a minimum of $573 billion. The plan is being supported mainly by German finance firms, who have an interest in supporting sustainable energy: For such firms, the climate change poses a fiscal threat since insuring weather-related catastrophes accounts for a large part of their expenses.
Organizations and politicians who support localized, small-scale photovoltaic power generation also oppose the plan.
“Sahara power for northern Europe is a mirage,” said Hermann Scheer, a member of the German Parliament and the head of the European Association for Renewable Energy. “Those behind the project know themselves that nothing will ever come out of this.”
However, the tantalizing potential of the Desertec plan is tangible. The news story cites the fact that "more energy falls on the world’s deserts in six hours than the world consumes in a year." That's certainly impressive.
A new story out of Sibera has some shed some light on the progress in recovering from the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydro-electric plant tragedy. (The Sayano-Shushenskaya is the world's fifth-largest hydro-electric power plant.)
The overall water flood level has decreased by about six feet. 30 thousand (of about 250 thousand) cubic meters of water have been pumped out. 4,650 cubic meters of cement structures have been removed from the ruined plant.
Still, sixty-four workers are missing, most of whom are presumed dead.
A boat drives through the oil polluted waters of the Yenisei river downstream from the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power dam in Cheryomushky in the Russian Federation. The death toll from the catastrophic flood that engulfed Russia's biggest hydroelectric power station rose to 17, but 58 people are still missing, officials said.
An explosion at Russia's largest hydroelectric plant, the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric plant in Siberia, has left a confirmed twelve people dead and at least fourteen more confirmed injured. Additionally, at least sixty-four people are missing. The Sayano-Shushenskaya plant produces 10% of Siberia's energy needs, and this disaster has wreaked havoc across Russia's industrial sectors.
It's not entirely clear what the exact cause of the disaster was. Our hearts and prayers go out to the affected and their families.
The gist of so-called "smart grid" technologies is that it is a way of delivering electricity from power generation companies to consumers using a sort of digital technology to regulate better the way the electricity is delivered. It's a kind of more intelligent, self-regulating way of delivering power. The power deliverer and the power receiver are each equipped with a "smart meter" that gives more information, such as how much electricity is being drawn and how much electricity each appliance draws.
Shidan Gouran has a recent article at Smart-Grid.tmcnet.com in which he expresses some reservations about smart grid technology.
Grid authorization, authentication and accounting mechanisms, together with a security infrastructure, would be needed to ensure a device’s proper identity, the networks integrity and proper accountability. The accounting process would also have to include sophisticated and decentralized clearing-house services so consumers could charge their PEVs with roaming utilities. Of course all these requirements would extend to every mobile/portable electric device including laptops and other consumer electronics. Turning power consumption into an individualized experience should, in my opinion, be an important goal of the Smart Grid.
The idea, basically, is that smart grid is a generally good idea, but it will call for an increasingly Byzantine communications network in order to be effective. The article isn't entirely negative, however, and it sends by saying, "the Smart Grid will look very similar to the most sophisticated IP-based networks of the communications industry," which, despite some snags, has worked out fairly well for the world.
There’s some interesting news out of China; the country’s largest electricity provider, Huaneng Power International, Inc., reported a profitable first half of 2009. The company reported a profit of $273.6 million, which is notable since it reported a loss the for the first half of 2008—its first since listing in Hong Kong in 1998—of $79.5 million.
It’s not all smooth sailing, however. Huaneng issued a statement saying, “there are still risks of tight coal supply.” It added, “the coal market is still fraught with uncertainty and instability,” and warned that coal supply and its rising price could create some difficulties in the power generation industry. Some of these difficulties have arisen because of intense negotiations between China’s top power generation companies and coal miners over price caps and coal production. Coal-based power plants produce nearly 80% of China’s electricity.
Lately, there’s been a lot of talk about the American Clean Energy and Security Act. The cornerstone of the bill is its implementation of a so-called “cap and trade” system to limit carbon emissions. Cap and trade calls for limiting environmentally-damaging pollution from factories, refineries, and power plants. The manner in which cap and trade limits such pollution is by imposing a government-mandated limit on heat-trapping pollutants. This limit decreases over time, thereby lowering the overall amount of emissions. Then, the system allows for the sale and trade of permits that allow the creation of such pollutants. Ideally, the cap and trade system would discourage the creation carbon emissions by putting a price on creating them. President Obama has expressed an intention of reducing U.S. emissions by 83% by 2050.
On 26 June 2009, the House of Representatives narrowly passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act thereby setting off a flurry of questions and debate. However, we are interested in the cap and trade system as it relates to the industrial power generation industry, a point of focus that has been unusually underrepresented in the national media. Rather, it seems like cap and trade is going to affect the power generation industry foremost among U.S. industries. While the United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers oppose the bill for fairly obvious reasons, its effect on U.S. energy producers is more ambivalent.
Under the wording of the House bill, in order to ease the transition into the cap and trade system, of the total $91.4 billion worth of carbon permits that would be provided by the government, many will be provided as free to regulated industries. This freebie period is expected to last until the end of the transition period, which is expected to occur between 2025 and 2030. The manner in which these allowances will be distributed is interesting. Whereas oil producers will receive 2.25% of their necessary permits in the form of allowances, the power generation industry is slated to receive approximately 85% of its permits as allowances. Ostensibly, this manner of distribution is to meant to avoid steep rate increases for power consumers. However, some power generation organizations feel that this amount is still not enough. It is clear, however, that this provision in the cap and trade system will save power companies from absolute ruin; they will have to make radical adjustments, though.
It is expected by many that the cap and trade system will force the energy industry to become more efficient. Whereas the expected cost increase for electricity is expected to be about 7% nationally, those who receive electricity from coal-dependent states can expect substantially greater increases. Against this notion, proponents of the cap and trade system say that the plan will return much of the money spent on permits to consumers in the form of lower taxes.
There are recent stories that suggest the impending cap and trade system is exercising its effect in another way on the power generation industry. On 29 July 2009, New Jersey regulators approved more than $515 million to spend on doubling the state’s solar power-generated energy. Included in the plan is for Petra Solar, Inc. to produce more than 200,000 smart solar systems for installation across the state, which is expected to create more than 100 green jobs. The federal government recently awarded Portland General Electric $3 million to augment the power generation capabilities of its Bigelow Canyon Wind Farm, which has been overtaxed during the summer months. The American Wind Energy Association recently released a market report citing Texas as the new leading wind power-generating state with a total of 8,000 megawatts capacity. It added 454 megawatts of that power during the second quarter of 2009. What these and other, similar stories seem to indicate is that power generation companies are looking to be proactive in the face of a cap and trade system. Rather than lobbying against change, they are rushing to meet it head-on with new alternate energy projects, many of which create new green jobs that can help combat the 9.5% unemployment rate that besieges our country. The power generating industry can look at this uncertain period in its history as a clarifying moment, an grand opportunity to update and rebuild a decaying, inefficient power grid to usher the country into the 21st century.
