Tag: "energy electricity coal natural gas petroleum oil renewable"

EPA Regulations Overruled by Supreme Court

In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had not adequately considered the costs of its regulations before enacting them. Limits finalized in 2012 as part of the Clean Air Act on toxic air pollutants proved to be a prohibitive cost on coal utility plants. They were also a main feature in the Obama administration’s environmental policies.

The case, Michigan v. EPA, centered on the first ever limits on mercury, arsenic, and acid gases emitted by coal-fired power plants. While the EPA had estimated the new rules would cost $9.6 billion, placing it among the costliest regulations ever instated.

Prior to the ruling, the head of the EPA Gina McCarthy had said she felt confident the Supreme Court would rule in their favor. However, were that not to be the case, she said:

But even if we don’t [win], it was three years ago, most of them are already in compliance, investments have been made, and we’ll catch up. And we’re still going to get at the toxic pollution from their facilities.

With most coal plants already in compliance, the ruling does little to slow emission curbs in the coal industry. Regulations on interstate air pollution were already upheld last year by the Supreme Court, ensuring that most utilities will need to control future pollution regardless of the new ruling. Furthermore, in the majority opinion, written by Justice Scalia, the Court ruled that the EPA could reconsider the regulations with better cost assessments before reinstating such rules.

 

Jun 29, 2015 | 5 comments | by

The Clean Coal Technology Myth

The potential rise of clean coal technology has been hampered by its costly nature. Originally intended to prevent greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere, there have been few real applications of this technology. The most promising clean coal development was the potential to make hydrogen from water by using coal and then burying the carbon dioxide by-product and burning the hydrogen, a form of carbon capture and sequestration.

In effect, clean coal technology was supposed to give the coal industry a lifeline into the future of cleaner fuels. In reality, the costs associated with clean coal increase the price of generation by up to 80 percent and cuts efficiency by 30 percent. Initial funding from the federal stimulus bill in 2009 offered $3.4 billion for carbon capture and sequestration. The money, however, soon ran out as costs escalated.

In Mississippi, for example, a clean coal technology project already estimated at $6.2 billion went so over budget that the South Mississippi Electric Power Association withdrew from the project. The coal plant was already the costliest fossil-fuel power plant ever engineered. In February 2015, the Department of Energy similarly pulled its support on a $1.1 billion clean coal project, called FutureGen, in Illinois.

The growth of cheap natural gas has been especially worrisome for the coal industry. In the United States, Arch Coal, one of the largest coal companies, is about to be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. Even China, a country that traditionally burns half the world’s coal, has been increasingly switching to natural gas and renewable energy. Between January and April of 2015, China’s coal demand fell 8 percent.

Even with so much bad news, coal’s share of primary-energy use in the world is unlikely to fall below 25 percent, from a peak of 30 percent in 2010, by 2035. For many countries, coal still means cheap and reliable energy where such a thing is rare. In such countries, regulations aren’t driving up the price of generation ensuring a continuous supply of affordable energy.

 

Jun 24, 2015 | 1 comment | by

U.S. Now Top Oil Producer

The United States has officially surpassed both Saudi Arabia in terms of crude oil production. In 2014, the U.S. had already exceeded both Russia and Saudi Arabia in hydrocarbon, oil and natural gas, production. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently predicted that such high production is likely to continue into the future, with an expected 9.4 million barrels a day this year and 9.3 million barrels a day for 2016.

Adam Sieminski, U.S. EIA administrator, said:

Despite the large decline in crude oil prices since June 2004, this May’s estimated oil output in the United States is the highest for any month since 1972.

U.S. producers have managed to maintain production levels by becoming more efficient and generating new cost savings. Lower prices have led to many labor cuts, with a loss of nearly 100,000 energy-related jobs. Some companies have cut up to 40 percent of their service and supply crews. By April 2015, only 750 rigs were still in operation compared to 1,596 in October 2014.

Industry insiders were not surprised by the EIA report and had previously expected production to keep steady while the growth rate slowed. With prices hovering around $60 a barrel, shale oil exploration is still profitable and will continue be an important source of production.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) plan to cut prices and hurt high-cost U.S. shale producers, however, remains unchanged. On June 7, OPEC announced it would keep production levels unchanged despite pressure from countries within the organization to lower production and increase price.

Fawad Razaqzada, a technical analyst at the trading website FOREX.com, commented on OPEC’s influence saying:

The cartel is losing some influence to the U.S. shale oil market and to a lesser degree Russia, but it still remains a dominant force ― just not as powerful as before.

 

Jun 15, 2015 | Leave a Comment | by

Germany Leads Charge for New Emission Commitments at G7

German Chancellor Angela Merkel won a key victory in her fight against climate change when the G7 agreed to adopt emission targets to limit the increase in future global temperatures. Chancellor Merkel had hoped the G7 would adopt these measures to show a united front prior to the climate summit in Paris this December.

The G7 plan aims to meet an emissions target outlined by a United Nations recommendation to reduce emissions in 2050 from 40 to 70 percent below 2010 levels. Many believe this would be enough to stop global temperatures from reaching dangerous levels.

It would, however, also come at a very high cost as many utility plants using fossil fuels would have to be shut down permanently. The cost of reducing emissions comes at an especially heavy price for developing countries, who simply cannot afford to divest from traditional forms of energy.

During the summit, Canada and Japan were the most hesitant to sign these commitments. Since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident, Japan has had to rely more heavily on coal, while Canada has seen economic growth opportunities from the oil boom in the Alberta tar sands. Pressure from both President Obama and Chancellor Merkel eventually convinced the two countries to sign onto the commitments after they had worked to water down the statement.

These commitments follow five controversial years in which five of the G7 countries have increased their coal use. While pressuring developing countries to lower emissions, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan and France have burned 16 percent more coal in 2013 than in 2009. Only the United States and Canada have lowered their emissions, due to a boom in natural gas consumption. The Stockholm Environment Institute also reported that developing countries were on track to reduce emissions more than industrialized nations.

For now, the commitments come without specific plans to lower emissions. Environmental lobbyists criticized the lack of real plan, saying the countries’ failures to agree to their own immediate binding emission targets weakened the promise of reduced emissions.

 

Jun 10, 2015 | Leave a Comment | by

Access to Electricity for 1.2 Billion by 2030

Power For All is a company that plans to bring about universal energy where governments have failed, before the year 2030. Power For All believes that bottom-up distributed energy solutions assuring universal access to electricity because are faster, cleaner and cheaper than extending power grids to rural areas.

Figures released this week by the joint UN-World Bank energy access program Sustainable Energy for All add to this argument:

  • From 2010 to 2012 some 222 million people — more than the population of Brazil — gained grid access for the first time. The growth outpaced global population growth almost 2 to 1, thus trimming the number not yet connected from 1.2 billion to 1.1 billion.
  • Those figures make electrification a bright spot. Little progress was detected in access to cleaner cooking fuels. Some 2.9 billion people were still cooking with biomass fuels such as wood and dung in 2012.
  • Grid access expanded mainly in urban areas, and fully one-quarter of the growth was in India. In Sub-Saharan Africa — the region with the highest energy access deficits — electrification just barely outpaced population growth; electrification trailed demographic growth in half of the world’s 20 least electrified countries.

To bring energy to 1.2 billion people that are energy impoverished by 2030, the International Energy Agency estimates it will cost $700 billion.

Jun 03, 2015 | Leave a Comment | by

The Real Cost of Clean Power Plan

The Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan Proposed Rule to cut carbon emissions from power plants, specifically targets coal power plants. Not only would this hurt United States energy supplies, but also greatly increase energy costs that would hit consumers by raising their electricity bill.

The following shows the difference between the analysis of the costs of the National Economic Research Associates and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The EPA estimates:

Annual cost estimates for complying with the Clean Power Plan range from $5.4 billion to $7.4 billion in 2020, to $7.3 billion to $8.8 billion in 2030. These annual cost estimates factor in both the costs of investments in transitioning to lower-carbon electricity options and the savings that result from investments in energy efficiency.

NERA estimates:

EPA’s Clean Power Plan could cost consumers and businesses a staggering $41 billion or more per year, far outpacing the costs of compliance for all EPA rules for power plants in 2010 ($7 billion) and the annual cost of the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule ($10 billion). The analysis also finds that additional coal retirements would total 45,000 megawatts or more of coal-based electricity, posing a major threat to electric reliability in many parts of the country.

Jun 01, 2015 | Leave a Comment | by

The Demise of Traditional Hydro-Power

Traditional hydroelectric power, generated by the storage and release of water in reservoirs, has faced regulatory and environmental restraints on growth for decades. The current generation capacity of hydroelectric power, in the form of conventional and pumped storage, in the United States is around 101,000 megawatts. According to the Electric Power Supply Association, this is enough energy to power 75 to 100 million homes.

In 2013, hydroelectric power accounted for 7 percent of energy production, about 50 percent of total renewable energy produced that year. This represents a sharp decrease from ­­­­about 25 percent of electric generation in 1920.

While the federal government owns only 8 percent of the total number of hydroelectric facilities, it accounts for 52 percent of total hydro generation due to the large size of its facilities. The private sector, public utilities, and state or local governments own the other 92 percent of the facilities, 89 percent of which have a generation capacity of less than 30 megawatts. The non-federal market for hydroelectric power is therefore significant, operating over 1,600 hydropower facilities in states across the country.

While initial investment costs for hydropower projects is high, overall costs in dollars per kilowatt hour are comparatively low. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, hydro power plants cost $0.08/kW-hr, while coal plants and nuclear plants average costs around $0.10/kW-hr. Natural gas power plants are more competitive with costs between $0.07/kW-hr and $0.13/kW-hr. The increase in natural gas plants, which provided 27 percent of U.S. energy in 2014, stems from the cheap supply of gas from hydraulic fracking and the relatively quick construction process of plants. As traditional hydro investment slumps, natural gas is there to pick up the slack and provide cheap electricity for American homes.

Other key reasons for the lack of growth in hydroelectric development stem from considerations outside of average cost, including:

  • Intentional removal of existing dams to restore wildlife habitats.
  • Locations for new reservoirs are lacking as most were constructed on in the twentieth century.
  • Many key rivers in the United States are drying up as a result of changing weather patterns and outdated water sharing laws.
  • Regulations implemented in 1992 drastically increased the waiting time for project development, discouraging future investors who already faced large initial investment costs. Licensing, through Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, for traditional hydro projects can take anywhere from 16 months to 10 years, depending on the environmental concerns on the project.
  • Intentional removal of nearly 900 dams in the last 25 years to restore wildlife habitats.

While one of the easiest methods for boosting generation capacity is installing hydroelectric generators on existing dams, the destruction of current dams is hindering this prospect. Future increases in hydroelectric capacity will stem mostly from new technologies focused on closed-loop pumped storage systems, tidal, and hydrokinetic power (using river water flow). These technologies offer an alternative to outdated methods of controlling and releasing water gradually, which effectively decrease the environmental concerns about hydroelectric power and provide a strong alternative to traditional hydro projects. While the costs for these projects are still too high to be commercially viable, investments in research and development have been increasing throughout the world.

Lauren Aragon is a research associate at the National Center for Policy Analysis.

May 27, 2015 | Leave a Comment | by

Powerwall or Powerdream?

Elon Musk recently introduced Tesla Motor’s new battery power product for the home. The Powerwall is a lithium-ion battery that is four feet tall, three feet wide and seven inches deep. The goal of the new battery is to offer superior solar powered energy independence. Musk even said that he had Africa in mind when he developed this new home energy source.

  • One lithium-ion battery Powerwall costs $3,000.
  • The 220 pound Powerwall uses solar energy or builds up reserve energy for later consumption.
  • Daily-cycling Powerwall provides 7 kilowatt-hour capacity, 70 times to 100 times the power of a typical laptop battery.
  • Up to nine Powerwalls can be used in one home at one time to combine the power capacity, up to 63 kilowatt-hour.

While the new battery could prove to be a superior to alternative solar power batteries that are currently in use, it still is a product that is priced out of the market. The average energy consumption in the United States is about 30 kilowatt-hour. One Powerwall would provide less than a third of that energy demand, where the remaining demand must come from another energy source or sources. The average energy utility bill in the U.S. is $107 a month. If a third of that bill is about $36 and is covered by the Powerwall, it would take over 7 years before the savings would cover the cost of the Powerwall. With so many factors up in the air (the $5 billion Gigafactory and expansion, future home energy prices, solar cost and energy demand, other energy sources), the Powerwall looks more like a dream of Elon Musk.

May 11, 2015 | 1 comment | by

The Expensive Solar Power Death Trap

The $2.2 billion Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is a concentrated solar thermal plant in the California Mojave Desert. The Ivanpah solar facility generates 377-392 megawatts (enough to power 140,000 homes) and spreads across 3,600 acres killed over 3,500 birds in its first year, according to a new report.

From 29 October 2013 to 20 October 2014 at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System facility:

  • Avian detections at the site included 83 different bird species with 64 having fewer than 10 detections.
  • Of the remaining 19 species, all have populations that are great enough locally (either as breeders, wintering birds, or migrants), regionally, and nationally that the magnitude of mortality detected and/or estimated at Ivanpah during the first four seasons of monitoring would have a minimal impact on populations at any of these geographic scales.
  • The cause of death for 42.2 percent of the detections of species with 10 or more detections was unknown and thus cannot be determined with certainty to have been “facility-caused”, the standard cited in Section 5.3 of the Plan.

The report‘s recommendations concerning monitoring and/or adaptive management at Ivanpah include:

  • Continuation of Plan implementation as it was performed during year 1 monitoring.
  • Continue with and increase the number of searcher efficiency and carcass persistence trials to enable more refined estimates by season and/or within project elements.
  • Continuation of the adaptive management process to investigate means of reducing avian mortality.
  • Full implementation of bat deterrence at all three solar units.

In comparison, a new coal-fired power plant that generates enough electricity to power as many homes as Ivanpah, costs $1.1 billion. At double the cost, solar power is still too expensive.

Apr 27, 2015 | 4 comments | by

Person-to-Person Energy Market

With ridesharing services like Lyft and Uber and travel services like Airbnb, the person-to-person market is gaining more and more traction in the American market. In Europe, the idea is gaining even more of a foothold ― starting with the energy sector.

Vandebron is an Amsterdam-based person-to-person electricity service. The service provides a platform for small energy producers to connect directly to consumers. The producers give their price and type of energy, then sell spots until they reach their production capacity. The platform also gives consumers a chance to see directly where their energy is coming from, meet their providers, and make an informed decision regarding their energy choices.

While some places in the U.S. offer some price comparison options ― Texas, for instance, offers a site that allows you to compare prices from different energy companies ― consumers have very little access to the kind of transparency that person-to-person electricity markets offer.

Giving consumers more control, opening up markets, and empowering consumers to make informed decisions are key elements to increasing competition. Making room for person-to-person markets in the energy sector could drive energy prices down ― and innovation up.

Feb 11, 2015 | Leave a Comment | by
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