Below are a few letters received for EnergyBiz Insider at Energy Central on topics that appeared in the past few weeks. They capture the essence of how many readers say they feel. The Power of Conservation - October 3, 2007
I hate to break it to you, Ken, but the Europeans and Asians have been doing "demand response" for years. Why is it always we Americans who must be first and best at everything? Give others some credit where it's due. Any large hotel chain will tell you this has been in practice for some time now. And that is just one example of how the rest of the world CONSERVES energy while we Americans still consume it like it's still 1940!
Stephanie Nelson
The Woodlands, TX
For many years, I have read EnergyBiz articles with interest. Very talented people have shared their ideas for solving the energy problems, and they have championed a variety of possible solutions. I believe the real answer will be a combination of many of these ideas. Emerging technologies such as wind, solar and fuel cells will play an important role. As will as established technologies such as thermal energy storage. TES is a proven method to manage on-peak energy growth while the other developing technologies are being perfected.
In the 1990's, State Public Service Organizations often required regulated electric utilities to take steps to balance their loads. Applications for new power plants and rate increases were tied to these steps. Since deregulation, the unchecked growth of on-peak demand has been staggering. Rather than investing in efforts to reduce peak growth, electric firms offer Demand Response Programs that will get them through demand crunch periods until new plants are on line.
The peak demand is only a 4 to 6 hour a day period that might be required for 10 to 15 working days a year. These few hours a year dictate all aspects of the power industry.
I have specialized in the application of thermal ice storage for 25 years. Both chilled water and ice storage TES systems can be major contributors to the energy solution. The technology has been in use for over 50 years with proven results. TES systems actually shift the peak energy use for air-conditioning and process cooling loads to non-peak hours. This reduces the on-peak demand at the user's site, on the transmission and distribution networks and at the generation facilities. The TES system costs less than the cost of installing new power generation and upgrading the network. The incremental cost to add ice storage to a conventional chiller water cooling system and shift one megawatt of power for 8 hours to a non-peak period is approximately $1,000,000. The approximate cost for new power generation, whether it is coal, oil or nuclear, is $1,800,000 per MW. In a regulated utility market, it was recognized to be less expensive to reduce peak energy than to add new pla! nts.
In 1995, a Baltimore utility was offering rebates to reduce peak demand. They provided formulas to calculate the effect that the demand reduction would have on the utility's cost all the way back to the generating source. . In those days, the normal rebate was $200/kW avoided, while the actual cost for new plants was closer to $1,000/kW. On one particular project, an engineering firm projected a rebate of over $1,000.00 for a TES peak load reduction of less than one MW. In today's market, with energy costs and generation costs much higher, I think it is safe to predict a one MW peak reduction might be closer to $2,000,000 utility cost savings.
Prior to deregulation, the benefits of reducing demand were easier to evaluate. The utility owned the generation plants as well as the transmission and distribution networks. All of the costs and savings were under the same umbrella. With deregulation, the financial path gets very convoluted.
End users want to be environmentally responsible as long as their energy costs are reasonable. Environmentalists want to slow the growth of global warming and reduce power plant greenhouse gas emissions. However, the economy of the various firms that actually own the power plants and maintain the networks might be better served by adding more plants and overhauling the transmission networks. The moral and ethical pedestal where utility firms were placed in corporate America has been severely shaken over the past decade. Without some type of behavior guidelines, there will not be a solution to the energy situation.
True energy independence may happen when all of our energy options are operating at full potential. However, it might be another 10 years before wind, solar and fuel cells can make a substantial positive impact. In the mean time, TES can respond immediately. Within the next 10 years, the peak demand in every major city in America could be reduced by 300 MW or more. Imagine the positive effect this would have on emissions, reliability and the economy. The technology is ready, proven and there are several thousand operating installations to back that up. No other existing technology could respond as quickly and be as cost effective.
Since energy conservation, reduction in power plant emissions, a diminished need for new plants and reliable transmission network are desirable, electric demand management is absolutely essential.
C. Louis Clark, Jr. C.E.M
Canada Changes Course - October 5, 2007
While I do not support many of Stephen Harper's ideas, I commend him for his (non)stand on the Kyoto Accord. He is indulging in creative stalling, which is the only sensible course. We really DO NOT know that carbon dioxide is causing climate change. There are several alternative suggested causes and the current warming (which seems to have stalled around 1998) is probably more likely a continuation of the warming that has taken place since the end of the Little Ice Age, from around 1850 (which by no coincidence is the starting year for Gore's temperature chart that supposedly shows alarming warming).
The dominant greenhouse gas is WATER, not carbon dioxide. It is responsible for up to 95% of the so-called "greenhouse effect". Carbon dioxide is only a minor player, and Man's activities put only about 3% as much CO2 into the atmosphere yearly as does Nature. How does the atmosphere distinguish between them? Its concentration is believed to have increased from 0.00028 of the atmosphere to 0.00038 over the past couple of hundred years.
If the Kyoto Accord were put into effect...heck, if ALL manmade CO2 emissions were stopped immediately...there would be no discernible temperature effect 50 and 100 years from now. (As an aside, we don't even have accurate ground-level temperature measurements over most of the world.) The scare tactics are based on glorified video games and are not to be trusted to the extent of spending billions of dollars and damaging our economies. Canada, and every other country, would be foolish to take heroic action on the basis of shonky "everybody-knows" pseudo-science. Even the much-quoted IPCC reports are more political than scientific and should be approached with great caution as a source of information.
Ian L. McQueen
Glenwood, NB
Great summary of the Harper Canadian GHG position. He is in the minority and even the CEO's of the major companies; many considered in support of the Conservative agenda have come out in favour of more comprehensive approach than just TECHNOLOGY. http://www.globe-net.ca/news/index.cfm?type=&newsID=
First we lose our hockey supremacy to US teams and now we lose our Green House Gas commitment to Asia Pacific? Created by US since they rejected Kyoto but want to make $$$ Trading GHG's. Having many of my family living in US makes for very interesting holiday discussions. At least we have a brief $CDN=$US! Although it doesn't help our exports!
Hopefully the Conservation and Demand Management programs your site has mentioned will become equally funded just like the engineering mega projects every large utility thinks will work on time and on budget even if they sequester the CO2 or use gasification! Perhaps you can come or send someone to Chicago to participate in the DR-EXPO (www.dr-expo.com) where we hope to develop the building automation sector expertise to work with the GRID Demand Response Programs to reduce the PEAK load which is usually fossil and causes the most GHG's. We are arming our border guards to stop terrorists but they can't stop the pollutants going both ways. Keep up the great work.
David Katz
Building Intelligence Quotient Consortium
In your article on Canadian Prime Minister Harper's declaration that it will abandon the Kyoto Protocol and join the Asia-Pacific partnership in 2012 you made reference to a statement that "Canada will join the US, Australia, Japan, China, India and Korea in the alternative alliance -- a group that accounts for half the world's greenhouse gas emission." Unfortunately, such careless omission of the term "anthropogenic" (man-made), whether referencing Harper or other scientific powerhouses, such as Al Gore and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the whole issue of global warming gets greatly distorted. Such statements should be put into the proper context for the sake of journalistic integrity.
The numbers are quite simple: 95% of the "Greenhouse Effect" is the result of water vapor in the atmosphere, of which 99.999% is natural in origin.
CO2 comprises 99% of the remaining 5% of non-water vapor greenhouse effect (far and away more dominant than other gases, such as methane, nitrogen oxides and CFCs on a weighted basis). Although estimates vary greatly, man's contribution to all atmospheric CO2 is said to be about 3% at best, despite a measured rise in total atmospheric CO2 of over 10% above what historic evidence (mainly ice core measurements) suggest was the case.
If Man's CO2 emissions were cut in half anthropogenic effects on global warming would be expected to lessen from 0.15% (0.05*0.99*0.03*100) to 0.074%, either of which are way within the computational margin of error.
Although many academicians with a dog in this fight have estimated a mere 1.1F rise in averaged global temperatures, as measured or surmised has occurred in the modern era, they have yet to produce for the politicians and activists the right combination of correction factors in their models to explain the link to man's carbon emissions, despite the best efforts of some of the most powerful super computers and deep pocketed democracies on earth.
More attention ought to be paid to the study of the sun's irradiance, which in less than a decade of concerted effort, appears to have come up with much more scientifically plausible explanations for earth's current warming spell and rise in global CO2 concentrations, unrelated to man effects.
Pete Jonscher, PE
Gutsy move, and I like it. Climate Change is a fact, well documented over thousands of years. Nothing anthropogenic about it, despite what Al Gore and Kyoto say. The hype about cutting GHG emissions for that reason is just that - hype. The reason is political, not scientific. The purpose is job creation, (see www.REPP.org). Don't be fooled by Gov. Schwarzenegger, Charlie Crist, or the 24 other States that have passed RPS legislation. They know Solar is uneconomical, so is Ethanol. But with the right amount of subsidies, they will create jobs. Which means you and me will be footing the bill.
Don't be fooled either by the "Oil Independency" argument. Electricity production in the US accounts for 2% of our Oil consumption - 4% of Oil imports.
That being said, don't walk away from the real thing. Coal pollution is real - this is the problem we face with electricity demand growth. As to Oil, we must find alternate ways to generate Transportation requirements.
The answers out there are obvious. Coal can be substituted by Nuclear, Geothermal, Biomass and to a lesser extent by Wind. Another solution is grid efficiency and we have it - supply chain management, smart metering, and maybe one day HTS Superconductivity. Solar needs more R&D - thin film is one step, the real thing is new materials, Galenium Indium Arsenide et al.
As far as Oil is concerned, the answers are less obvious. One easy way is efficiency. The other one, easy too, is conservation. The short term solution is hybrid cars. Longer term, it is the all electric car. Unfortunately today we do not know out to store energy efficiently - meaning their needs to be a breakthrough in battery technology, and we are not there yet.
Net net though, Canada is joining the ranks of pragmatics. Job creation has great appeal, short term, but it does nothing to solve the long term problem. Maybe Canada, a vocal proponent of Fuel Cells, Tar Sands and exotic Biofuels, realized it could not longer attract enough funds for these now failed projects. Canada won't let go off the fight, but it sounds like it is now focusing on reality. I would hope France follows - the UK won't, their Universities are knee deep in the hype. As far as Spain, Italy and Greece are concerned, job creation is a priority so they'll mull along - up until, like Canada, they run out of investor interest.
Franck J. Prissert
C.E.O.
Capital Max, Inc.
Corporate Board's New Faces - October 8, 2007
It seems to me that the Utilities and Sears have parallel or similar problems, i.e. NOT taking care of business in a timely manner.
Sears was distracted from the core business purpose of running the world's largest store and mail order business. Management was distracted and diverted by the euphoria of the construction and preparations for occupancy of the new Sears Tower to pay attention to their real reason for existence.
Likewise the Utilities were concentrating on holding costs down and playing everything close to the vest that the completely forgot the imminent need to prepare for the increased demand for future needs of industry and the public. The shenanigans of corporate officers feathering their own nests at the expense of shareholders and others was further cause for not fulfilling their own responsibilities.
Wm. S. Hornbaker
Knoxville TN
AEP Bats Clean Up - October 12, 2007
This article misses the salient point. To reduce energy consumption, lower electric cost, and reduce global warming we need to replace these old inefficient coal plants one for one with modern efficient low emission ones. This does not include the fantasy that carbon sequesting will work. The modern coal plant is 10% - 25% more efficient than one built from 1940 to 1990. We can increase our electrical supply while reducing our coal consumption and pollution. Lets get to it and stop trying to add pollution controls to antiquated equipment. I think people will support this idea if presented correctly. The simple truth is we can generate more electricity with less coal if we retire these old plants.
Scott Greenbaum
Greene Energy Consultants, LLC
When the 1970 Clean Air Act was originally promulgated, AEP denied scrubbers or Flue Gas Desulfurization (FGD) systems, claiming that the answer to Acid Rain was taller stacks. When AEP converted their plans for Zimmer Station from nuclear to coal, not only did they include FGD systems but implemented recovery of residue as FGD By-Product Gypsum. This recent settlement and AEP's research and demonstration plans for CO2 capture clearly show their leadership role in showing how coal can fit into USA's future energy plans.
Dr. Richard W. Goodwin, P.E.
Environmental Engineering Consultant
How ridiculous -- talking like the end of coal is the end of the world. Please wake up and realize that we cannot live without clean air and water, and if the ecosystem collapses -- which will happen if we continue to increase CO2 and other CO2 equivalents like CH4 (methane), we're cooked. Have you seen the news that we're up to 455 ppm CO2 equivalent? Have you read about all the methane that's trapped in the permafrost, which is melting? The methane in the permafrost dwarfs even what coal plants emit.
So what if the cost of coal doubles? Thank god! Efficiency is a fraction of the cost of coal, with no pollutants; concentrating solar is coming in at 11-12 cents kWh. It's hard to say what coal really "costs" us when the ocean is acidified, we have permanent drought, crop failure, more hurricanes, the seas rise one foot per decade, and other fun and frolic my children can look forward to.
It's sickening, what the coal and oil and utilities have sold us for 30 years. It's keeping me up at night. But there's only one planet -- and we're all in this together -- so I hope that you and your colleagues will start working on actual solutions rather than half-truths and fantasies like carbon sequestration.
www.energyjustice.net/coal/igcc
Three million tons/YEAR of CO2 sequestered is NOT a solution - it's a scam.
Nancy LaPlaca
Bardwell Consulting Ltd
Just a quick note to say that I appreciate each of your columns and understand the commitment you have made to continue to put them out regularly on some of the most timely topics. The latest is no exception. Very interesting, informative, and well written.
Martin J. (Mike) Pasqualetti, Ph.D.
Professor, School of Geographical Sciences
Arizona State University
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