Oil Seeping Into Louisiana, But Not From Where You'd Think

Some bad news in general for the power industry and the American environment as a whole. A recent report out of New Orleans, Louisiana has it that some oil is washing up on shore.

It might not seem like a big deal, after all wasn’t the BP oil spill huge? It is bad, though. There’s an oil sheen reportedly stretching 100 miles into the Gulf of Mexico. The water samples containing oil (petroleum hydrocarbons, oil, and grease, actually) were well above the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality’s standards for clean water.

According to the Coast Guard, this oily substance is caused by the Mississippi River’s flow and not from the BP Deepwater Horizon spill.

It’s troubling that Louisiana faces oil contamination from the north as well as the south, from the BP spill. Is it’s situated at the mouth of the Mississippi, the state serves almost like a drain for all the sediment and other materials in the Mississippi’s lengthy flow.

If Louisiana’s present struggle with oil contamination isn’t compelling enough evidence for looking for non-petroleum-based energy sources, I don’t know what is. Our hearts go out to all those still suffering from the state’s tragic disasters.

America's Tallest Building To Become A Solar Farm?

Quick—what’s the tallest building in America? If you said the Empire State Building, you’re wrong. And even if you said the Sears Tower, you’d be wrong. (They changed the name of it to the Willis Tower last year.)

The Willis Tower, the tallest building in America, is set to become a solar farm later this year, one of the largest—it follows—in America.

A company called Pythagoras Solar will replace all the windows on the west side of the 56th floor of the Willis Tower with photovoltaic glass. This special glass will allow light to come in and occupants to look out while collecting as much energy as a conventional solar panel.

If the project goes according to plan, the solar panels on the Willis Tower could generate up to 2 MW of power—as much as a 10 acre field of solar panels.

Hopefully this project goes well, because our cities represent a huge untapped resource for generating solar power. Utilizing windows and roofs in urban environs could really help America as it transitions to evolving power needs.

American Nuclear Power Remains Underutilized

Even with the terrible events in Japan and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, demand for power remains as rapacious as ever. And as fossil fuels start running out, the need for sustainable energy is growing.

According to Bloomberg, nuclear power generation at two of the leading nuclear reactors in the United States has remained the same. This staying level could actually count as a decrease, since power generation nationwide actually increased over the last year, a sign of the public’s reluctance to embrace nuclear power.

The two nuclear reactors in question, Salem 1 and Salem 2, are located in New Jersey. The two are currently running at 90% capacity. Other nuclear power plants around the country are facing similar stagnation. A nuclear reactor, the Byron 1, lies inert 85 miles west of Chicago. It requires repairs. The Byron 2 plant, though, is operating at 96% capacity.

The McGuire 2 reactor in North Carolina recently faced a control rod malfunction. The plant is currently shutdown until it can undergo troubleshooting and repair. The McGuire 1 unit is operating at maximum power, though.

According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, the average nuclear reactor in the United States had a 41 day outage.

Hopefully the tragedy in Japan won’t chasten further shutdowns of nuclear power plants in America. Even though the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has faced an unforeseeable tragedy of epic proportions, it doesn’t mean that a similar thing will happen at other nuclear power plants. And nuclear power is cleaner than fossil fuel-based power generation.

The Lasting Impact from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

The terrible tragedy in Japan was the massive earthquakes and tsunamis that ensued. Of course, aside from the horrible loss of life and property sustained by Japan, there is an even worse, lasting impact on Japan: The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Now, there’s radiation being found in the water filling trenches around the nuclear plant.

The trenches were built to stop potentially contaminated water from spreading out from the plants. These trenches have collected the water, but its contamination is slowing down the clean-up efforts of relief workers.

According to James Acton, an associate in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment, the environmental damage stemming from the tragedy in Japan is on par with the massive British Petroleum oil spill. Hopefully, it won’t get any worse than that.

International Electric Car News Round-Up

Electric cars. Compared to our gasoline-chugging autos, they’re like a piece of the future set in the present day. Of course, they don’t have a lot to do with industrial power generation, but they’re related to many of the challenges facing industrial power generation.

Here are a couple of electric car stories.

Out in Israel, a company called Better Place is setting up batter swap stations for electric cars. Normally, you need to plug in your electric car, to charge it. However, charging a car is a slow proposition. The ability to get powered back up in a matter of minutes is a game changer when it comes to electric automobiles. No longer limited to a few hundred miles range, nor tied to a ten hour charging process, electric cars could really take off in Israel.

In other international electric car news, the first fuel cell-powered cabs are taking to the streets in London. It’s not a new thing for cars like Priuses to be employed as cabs, but these fuel cell cars are a more advanced technology. Add that to the cache of London’s distinctive black cabs, and you’ve got a stylish, power-saving way to get around London. Intelligent Energy, the company behind London’s new fuel cell black cabs, hopes to have a fleet of them ready by London’s 2012 Olympic games.

Venezuela Is a Major Player in Oil, Yet Remains Under-Powered

It’s difficult to maintain a good supply of power in the best of situations. Whether you’re worried about a steady supply of coal (clean or not), keeping a steady grid, and a myriad of other things that can come up. Bu worrying about potentially despotic rulers are above and beyond the run of the mill power generation problems.

Venezuela, under the rule of Hugo Chávez, is seeing massive power generation problems.

For the last 12 years of the Chávez regime, the Venezuelan government has face huge problems with its power generation. According to energy expert José Manuel Aller, a professor with Simón Bolívar Univesity, the country has systemic problems meeting its power needs.

Aller says that Venezuela’s electricity grid needs to expand by 500 MW per year. But since Chávez has been in control of the country, Venezuela’s power has only grown by 100 MW per year—at best.

Not only is the power generation operation not growing fast enough, but up to 60% of its equipment is obsolete and out of service. The Chávez regime hasn’t spent any money—and no major outside investment has helped—on growing the power infrastructure.

Right now, 19 states in Venezuela (of 23) are facing electricity rationing. That rationing still isn’t enough, either. The country also suffers from regular blackouts.

Venezuela is a major player in the international oil trade. It’s the 40th-largest country by population, as well. Hopefully, if the government can find some stability, it will also find some outside funding to keep it sufficiently powered.

Geothermal Power Growth in America

There may be a lot of bad things happening in the Gulf of Mexico (see the BP oil spill), but it is still a place of massive power generating potential—with or without its oil.

A big part of that power generating potential is geothermal power production. There are many new projects focused on generating power using geothermal pressure. Presently, America leads the world in geothermal power generation, with 3,102 MW generated annually by geothermal.

Geothermal power generation is also generating jobs, according to the Geothermal Energy Association. This year, there are 146 projects in 15 states all looking to develop geothermal power generation. One of the biggest ones is focused on using the massive amount of geothermal energy generated along the Gulf of Mexico, but there are also projects in NEvada, California, Oregon, New Mexico, Idaho, and Alaska.

It’s certainly a good sign for American power production that there are businesses exploring alternate energy sources. It’s good not only because it will upgrade our power generation capabilities and lessen our reliance on other countries’s resources, but it also generates jobs and tax revenues that keep America running—much like the power they also generate.