Blog Archive for December, 2011
Note to readers
Midwest Energy News is slowing down a bit for the holidays. Here are the details:
Reporter Dan Haugen will be handling website duties tomorrow and next week. Things are awfully slow this time of year, so I’m sure he’d be grateful if you sent story recommendations his way. The website will not be updated on Monday, December 26.
The email digest will go on hiatus Friday through Monday, returning Tuesday, December 27.
We’ll also be taking a break on Monday, January 2. I’m sure there will probably be some football on or something.
If you’re taking a long break next week, fear not! I’ll compile a list of the top stories you missed over the holiday break.
And as always, thanks to you for reading and supporting Midwest Energy News.
Hooray for hydropower?
While Congress debates cutting support for wind and solar energy, a new bill from members of the House Energy Committee proposes spending $5 million to study the potential of expanding hydropower in the U.S.
HB 3680, introduced by Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), notes that only 3 percent of the nearly 80,000 dams in the U.S. generate electricity. The bill claims that by 2025, we could build an additional 60,000 MW of new hydropower generation, creating 700,000 jobs in the process.
About 7 percent of electricity in the U.S. is generated from hydropower, and Rep. McMorris Rodgers’ home state of Washington already gets nearly 70 percent of its electricity from big dams like the Grand Coulee. It’s a less significant energy source in the Midwest, accounting for less than 2 percent of the mix in most states. South Dakota is the outlier, getting more than half its electricity from hydro.
The bill also includes a provision to study the potential of closed-loop pumped hydro storage projects.
While 80,000 dams sounds like a lot of untapped energy potential, as reporter Frank Jossi learned back in June, most of those dams are small, low volume and not at present economically viable to be tapped for energy. As of this summer, developers had applications on the table for an additional 321 MW of capacity on existing dams and locks throughout the upper Mississippi River system, doubling the river’s current energy capacity, but still a far cry from 60,000.
And pumped-hydro storage also has limited potential. Federal regulators have issued permits for 32,000 MW worth of pumped-hydro projects nationwide, but cost-effectiveness again remains a challenge.
In a news release announcing the bill, Michigan Rep. Fred Upton calls hydropower an important part of an “all of the above” energy strategy.
“Hydropower is renewable, reliable, and affordable, and the potential for this domestic resource is great. The increased development of hydropower will spur the creation of hundreds of thousands of American jobs and help us to meet our country’s growing energy demands.”
Utility dispute casts shadow on Minnesota solar project
A 600-kilowatt community solar project could become a casualty of unspecified personnel issues within a rural Minnesota utility.
The Willmar Municipal Utilities Commission voted 6-1 on Dec. 12 to place its general manager, Bruce Gomm, on a 30-day paid leave while it investigates alleged “disruptive activities.” Meanwhile, an editorial (registration required) in the city’s newspaper has called for a broader investigation that includes commissioners, department supervisors and City Council members.
It’s unclear what the allegations are about, but they’re a big enough distraction that the board also voted the same day not to move forward with a planned $2.5 million solar project.
The Willmar utility had been working on the project with the Minnesota Clean Energy Resource Teams (CERTs) and the University of Minnesota’s West Central Partnership. Bloomington-based TenKsolar was prepared to participate as an investor and manufacturer. A consultant was hired over the summer to finalize the plans.
Jeff Vetsch, MnCERTs
The project was an attempt to take the “flip” financing model that’s been successful in community wind projects and apply it to solar, said Jeff Vetsch, CERTs’ West Central Minnesota coordinator.
Willmar Municipal Utilities was slated to contribute $1.2 million toward the project. TenKsolar would have owned and maintained the solar array for five years, during which it would receive all tax incentives related to the project. After that, ownership would be transferred to the local utility.
The solar project was on the agenda for the Dec. 12 meeting when the employee matter came up. Following the closed-session vote on Gomm’s leave, CERTs and TenKsolar gave presentations to the board.
“We thought we had a pretty good model here,” Vetsch said. “They said they really liked the project, but with everything else that was happening they didn’t feel they could do it.”
The utility board’s vice president, Dave Baker, said “timing could not have been worse.”
“We’ve got a lot on our plate,” Baker said in an interview. “When I saw the presentation, I liked it. I think if it was a year from now or six months from now and we had things a whole lot more clear, I think that it would be something that I could support myself.”
By then, however, the model may not be feasible. The project was based on tax incentives that are due to expire at the end of 2012, Vetsch said. CERTs is seeking another utility to revive the project, but the shrinking window to find a new partner will close in a matter of weeks, not months.
“It’s going to be a challenge,” said Vetsch. “If you know anybody who wants a 600 kilowatt solar array…”
Xcel would rethink wind plans without tax credit
The expiration of a federal tax credit for wind farms could cause the nation’s top wind-power provider to put the brakes on its wind plans.
The wind production tax credit (PTC) significantly reduces the cost of wind power, but it’s set to expire at the end of 2012. Because of the amount of lead time it takes to manufacture turbines, an industry association says it’s already causing developers to hesitate on projects.
Xcel Energy, which has more megawatts of wind capacity on its system than any other utility, said this month that it will need to reevaluate its wind plans if the credit expires.
The utility is pessimistic about the odds of the tax credit being extended past 2012, which is says “appears unlikely at this point.” It’s working to accelerate its wind development as much as possible in the next 12 months, but after that it expects to wait for the market to settle before pursuing more projects. Here is what it had to say in a resource plan update filed Dec. 1:
“The PTC significantly reduces the cost of wind generation, without which it may not be a cost-effective investment. However, the PTC is set to expire at the end of 2012 and extension appears unlikely at this point. Thus, post-2012 wind projects may be significantly more expensive if they are unable to rely upon the availability of the PTC.
“We have explored the opportunity to procure low-cost wind generation between now and the expiration of the PTC, but the short timeframe also created significant construction, permitting and financing challenges. The Company will continue to explore opportunities to procure as much as 300 MW of additional wind generation prior to the PTC expiring. While we are eager to obtain low priced, cost-effective wind generation for our customers, we seek to avoid the risks of incomplete or failed projects. We will, of course, report to the Commission if we are successfully able to contract for additional wind generation prior to the PTC deadline.
“Currently we have significant installed generation and a bank of renewable energy credits that we can use to satisfy our renewable energy requirements. To the extent the PTC expires and wind prices increase as expected, we will be able to rely on our installed generation and banked RECs rather than adding uneconomic wind generation. Drawing upon our installed generation and banked RECs will allow us to wait for the market to settle and reevaluate market conditions in our next Resource Plan filing. This allows us to evaluate market conditions and acquire wind only if it is a cost-effective resource for our customers. Thus if prices do not spike or cost- effective opportunities become available, we may add wind generation. In this update, we have modeled various wind scenarios to reflect our options. Our revised Five-Year Action Plan reflects that we will not add more wind generation after 2012 unless it is cost-effective for our customers.”
The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) says this type of hesitation is already causing a decline in orders from manufacturers. It issued a report (PDF) on Monday that predicts the U.S. wind industry will shed about 37,000 jobs if Congress allows the tax credit to expire. Extending the tax credit would spur the creation of 17,000 new jobs, it says.
“[T]hese jobs could vanish if Congress allows the Production Tax Credit to expire, in effect enacting a targeted tax increase, and sending our jobs to foreign countries,” AWEA CEO Denise Bode said in a news release. “Congress must act now to keep this American manufacturing success story going.”
Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) and Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) have introduced legislation to extend the tax credit four years. So far it has 44 co-sponsors, including 11 Republicans.
Photo by Olivander via Creative Commons
Tiny turbines help Iowa researchers test wind
Iowa State engineers are mini-wind turbines to study how hilly terrain and turbine placement affect power production. (Photo courtesty Iowa State University.)
What is this? A wind farm for ants? (Zoolander reference. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)
Engineers at Iowa State University in Ames are using tiny, 10-inch wind turbine models to test how hills, valleys and turbine placement can affect the power output of wind farms.
The project started after Hui Hu, an associate professor of aerospace engineering, noticed that there’s little data about how uneven terrain affects wind turbine generation.
It is well known that it does. When we wrote about wind forecasting in October, WindLogics CEO Mark Ahlstrom explained how topography and the placement of turbines relative to each other are important variables for predicting generation.
“The challenge is that a turbine is taking energy out of the wind flow,” creating a wake behind it, Ahlstrom said. “And so depending on exactly how those turbines are lining up that day relative to the wind directions, you’ll get very different power output at every turbine that’s downwind.”
Hu and his research team created turbines that are perfect 1:320 scale reproductions of standard, 80-meter diameter wind turbines. They’re now setting them up and running experiments with them in Iowa State’s Aerodynamic/Atmospheric Boundary Layer Wind and Gust Tunnel.
The goal is to give the wind industry better data about how wind moves across hilly terrain, and hopefully some insights on how to improve turbine placement and wind farm design.
“These studies are telling us things we didn’t know before,” Hu said in a news release. “And this will help optimize the design of wind turbine layouts with consideration of the terrain.”
The turbines have sensors mounted on the base to measure wind load and actually include mini generators inside to measure power production. The team also plans to used particle image velocimentry, a technique that involves using a laser and camera to document the flow of particles around the models.
Preliminary results suggest that, on flat terrain, wind “wakes” extend behind a turbine a distance six times its diameter. Other turbines in that wake lose 13 percent of their power production. The wind recovers more rapidly on hills, they’ve found.
“That means you can put wind turbines closer together in hilly terrain,” Hu said.
The research is being supported by a three-year, $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation and a two-year, $100,000 grant from the Iowa Alliance for Wind Innovation and Novel Development.
The Iowa State researchers are illustrating wind "wakes" using particle image velocimetry.
Video: CO2 to fuel
An energy company in Iceland says it has become the first in the world to produce renewable fuel from CO2 emissions on a commercial scale (via Reuters):
The process essentially combines carbon dioxide with hydrogen to form methanol, which is similar to ethanol and can be derived from other sources such as wood or coal. Producers of the fuel face similar distribution challenges to ethanol producers in the U.S. — cars aren’t designed to run on the fuel, so it can only be blended in limited amounts (in Iceland, the blend limit is 3 percent).
‘Energy Bills’ take fear out of efficiency
In Minnesota, where I live, Xcel Energy offers a really good deal on home energy audits for its customers. For as little as $30, inspectors will check your home’s insulation, windows, doors and heating/cooling system and make recommendations for improving your efficiency. Other utilities throughout the region offer similar programs.
I’ve known about this program for a long time, and like most people, have been putting off taking advantage of it.
That’s because it’s a bit like taking the car to the shop or going to the dentist – there’s probably going to be bad news, and it’s probably going to be expensive. It’s a lot less painful to just put the plastic up on the windows again and live in denial.
That’s where the Energy Bills come in:
The video series, produced by Energy Impact Illinois, features two “Bills” – Little Bill, who is wise in the ways of saving energy, and Big Bill, who is as dumb as a box of hair (“Water heaters kind of regulate how long your showers last because — I do it until the hot water runs out”).
The videos are actually entertaining, and more importantly, make the energy audit process feel more accessible. Because at least you’ll be in better shape than the guy who tries to save money by never changing his furnace filter.
(h/t Grist)
Ohio, Indiana rank near top for power plant toxins
Ohio's Muskingum River Plant is the worst offender in the U.S. for hydrochloric acid emissions, according to a new report.
A new report by the Environmental Integrity Project finds several Midwest states are among the most impacted by toxic pollutants from power plants.
The report examines data from the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory and ranks power plants according to their emissions of arsenic, chromium, hydrochloric acid, lead, mercury, nickel, and selenium. The EPA faces a court-ordered Dec. 16 deadline for new regulations for utilities to reduce toxic emissions. The agency estimates the new rules will prevent 6,800 to 17,000 premature deaths.
The EIP’s analysis places Ohio and Indiana second and third worst in the U.S., respectively, for their cumulative rankings of eight types of chemical emissions. Michigan, North Dakota and Missouri are also in the top 15.
The report also finds that levels of many of these pollutants have been declining overall, thanks to state-level regulations:
For EIP director Ian Levin, thought, that cleanup isn’t happening quickly enough.
“The only thing more shocking than the large amounts of toxic chemicals released into the air each year by coal- and oil-fired power plants, is the fact that these emissions have been allowed for so many years,” he says in a news release. “There is no reason for Americans to continue to live with unnecessary risks to their health and to the environment.”
Photo by OZinOH via Creative Commons
The coal-powered car
This week’s episode of EnergyNOW includes a segment on a car built by a Philadelphia inventor in 1932 that, in response to rising gasoline prices, runs on coal.
And while coal as a motor fuel didn’t really catch on, Americans’ love for putting unnecessarily large smokestacks on our vehicles remains as strong as ever:
But I digress.
Of course, this wasn’t the first time that automakers experimented with coal as a fuel source. Many of the earliest attempts at building a motorized carriage employed steam engines powered by wood or coal, such as this 1884 DeDion steamer that predates Karl Benz’s gasoline-powered Motorwagen:
Steam engines remained relatively common in early automobiles, most notably the Stanley Steamer, which in the early 1900s outsold gasoline-powered cars and set a land-speed record in 1906. These steam engines, though, were more likely to be fired by kerosene than coal.
Of course, electric cars, to an extent, also run on coal, depending on the power mix of the grid that they’re plugged into. Critics often conflate this to suggest that EVs are therefore dirtier than gasoline cars in terms of total emissions — a claim that an executive from Nissan recently dismissed as “complete bullshit.” (And indeed, the data seem to be on his side, particularly if you also factor in the electricity needed to extract and refine gasoline in the first place, which a lot of back-of-the-envelope calculations omit.)
But that doesn’t mean coal can’t or won’t be used as a motor fuel. The Swiss company Vitol recently signed a contract to distribute 10,600 barrels of synthetic gasoline per day from a proposed coal-to-liquids plant in Wyoming.
In other words, the coal-powered car might not be a thing of the past after all.
Goodhue Wind fight cited in energy program opposition
Minnesota Rep. John Kline is citing controversy over a proposed wind farm in Goodhue County in a letter to encourage fellow members of Congress to let a renewable energy grant program expire, according to a report in the Rochester Post-Bulletin (subscription required).
The letter calls on Michigan Rep. Dave Camp, who is chair of the House Ways and Means committee, to support allowing the Section 1603 renewable energy grant program to expire. Kline doesn’t mention the Goodhue project (which is in his district) by name, but cites opposition to wind farms as an “unintended consequence” of federal support for renewable energy:
While the goal of the program is to increase the use of renewable energy, including wind, I have escalating concerns about the unintended consequences of the program. For example, in Minnesota, a wind developer is working to establish a farm with more than 50 wind turbines despite strong concerns vocalized by hundreds of residents the program is slated to serve.
We’re still waiting for a response from Rep. Kline’s office to a request for a copy of the letter, but meanwhile, the full text is posted on several websites.
UPDATE: Rep. Kline has issued a news release further expanding on his comments.
