I’m attending the International Conference in Peak Oil and Climate Change in Grand Rapids, MI this weekend.
Tom Karas’s session looked at coal generation for electricity. His argument, essentially, was that transportation and housing would more or less take care of themselves as energy prices rise. Cars and houses would be replaced. But coal is still regarded as cheap, and accounts for almost 50% of the electricity generation capacity in the United States. He believes that it’s realistic to replace that that 50% using 20% conservation, 20% wind, and 10% new technologies. How do we get to 20% wind, when it’s a variable power source? The short answer: energy storage.
Large scale storage with compressed air
If you site wind generation capacity in geologically appropriate areas, you can take a small percentage of generated energy, and use it to compress air into geological structures which are capable of maintaining the pressure. When the wind isn’t blowing, you allow some of the air back to the ground, and run it through turbines. He said that the concept of 24/7 production of electricity from a wind turbine surprises many people, but there is one operating in Iowa as we speak. One of the audience members gave an example from his own life. A farmer he knows, this man said, ran a personal wind turbine to run his physical plant, coupled to a compressed air tank: the same effect on a personal scale.
Pumped storage with water
Karas also pointed to the Ludington pumped storage facility, which, at 842 acres, and an 1872 MW generation capacity, is one of the largest electricity storage facilities in the world. If we can feed coal-fired electricity into pumped storage, we can do the same for wind or solar.
Solar
For future solar solutions, he looks to thin film solar and the kinds of Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector (CLFR) that companies like Ausra are developing for utility scale solar generation.
Speeding up adoption
How do you encourage this kind of infrastructure? How do you make development of these projects make economical sense for investors? Germany’s success with Feed-In Tariffs, giving producers reliable prices over the long run inspired Ontario to start their own program in November 2007. Ontario, he said, was hoping for 100 MW of proposals. In fact, they got 65 proposals, totalling 330MW. In Sault St. Marie next year (2009), they will be creating the largest solar farm in Canada (60MW), thanks to Ontario’s Renewable Energy Standard Offer Program (RESOP).
He emphasized the need to keep the utilities running to maintain the power lines and infrastructure. It is unrealistic, he said, to expect them to continue the same service they provide now, while reducing their revenues. One promising approach, which has been tried with considerable success in California, is to decouple demand from revenue, by rewarding utilities when their demand goes down.
Outside photo: Local Futures
Inside Photo: Tom Karas
The daiz r gettin longer :) the progress gettin stressful but everything pulling thru yay =)
Ev1 is tired n almost done n gettin frustrated but in the end all is well.
luv piece ooligan grease
CP photo
From June 12 to July 6, the CP Spirit of 150 Rail Tour will visit 33 communities in the Kootenays, the Rockies, the Shuswap, Kamloops, the Fraser Canyon and Vancouver as part of the year-long BC150 celebration.
The CP Spirit of 150 Rail Tour is co-sponsored by Canadian Pacific, which is operating, staffing and maintaining the train. The train includes the vintage Empress 2816 steam locomotive and support cars, two vintage passenger coaches, a vintage business car, a heritage baggage car converted into a travelling museum and a vintage stage car.
The museum car features a selection of artifacts from the “Stories of you, me and BC,” a major exhibition at the Royal British Columbia Museum.
The stage car features the sound of British Columbia, with a live band and stage show by The Motherlode. Visitors can enjoy and interact with costumed performers depicting some of B.C.’s most entertaining and notorious historical figures.
June 26
Mission: West Coast Express Station, 33200 N. Railway Avenue (Between Home and Welton Street) 12:45 to 3:45 p.m.
Abbotsford: Gladys Avenue (extension of Highway #11) and George Ferguson Way/W. Railway Street. 5:30 to 9:30 p.m.
June 27
Maple Ridge: North Mainline Track (Across from the Billy Minor Pub, 22355 River Road) 9:45 to 11:45 a.m.
Pitt Meadows: West Coast Express Station, 12258 Harris Road. 12:30 to 2:30 p.m.
June 29
Port Moody: West Coast Express Station (West end parking lot, corner of Moody and Spring Street) 12 to 4 p.m.
June 30
Langley: Production Way, between 200th Street and Fraser Highway 2 to 4 p.m.
July 1 – Canada Day
Surrey: Cloverdale Village Square, Highway #10 (56th Avenue) and 176A Street (Rear Parking Lot) 10 to 4 p.m.
July 4
New Westminster: Advance Parking Lot, east of Westminster Quay, corner of Begbie and Front Street. 10 to 2 p.m.
July 5
West Vancouver: Ambleside Park, Marine Drive and 13th Street 10 to 2 p.m.
July 6
Vancouver: Rocky Mountaineer Station, 1755 Cottrell Street. 10 to 2 p.m.
for places outside the Vancouver region see the CP web page
A ‘culture of fear’ at Canadian National Railway is making it difficult for employees to report safety violations that raise the risk of derailments and other accidents, a federal parliamentary committee says in a new report to the House of Commons.
The report confirms what has been fairly common knowledge among those interested in railways for a while now. Certainly after the Cheakamus River incident, many were pointing to the way that CN had got rid of all the experienced people who understood the reasons for BC Rail’s more cautious attitude to operation over this line.
CN has been extremely successful as a privatized railway, shedding its branch lines all over Canada but taking over other railways in the US to become one of North America’s most profitable systems. But in concentrating on the bottom line both basic safety and the environment have suffered. The locomotive fleet includes engines built in the 1950s, which are left running all day as they are so hard to restart if stopped. CN has not been one of the leaders in buying new , more efficient and less polluting switchers, although with fuel costs increasing they may have to change that.
The climate of fear is a cultural thing, that lower and middle management pick up from the gung ho style of the top managers. It will take a while to get that to change, and the first step is accepting responsibility. It also means treating employees as partners and not adversaries, which means that unions need to adapt too.
A pair of ancient road switchers left idling in the sun in Richmond this week
When Stephane Dion indicated a tax on greenhouse gas
emissions would be a central plank in the Liberals’ next election
platform, he declared it was a good policy that would also make for
“good politics.”
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