Archivist
Senior Member
Drop me a line when they are producing commercially. Not that I don't believe, I'm agnostic, but the proof is in the pudding. Companies will say a great many things to attract investment.
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The End of Suburbia and Economic Apocalypse
- Thread starter Blixtein
- Start date
LowPolygon
Senior Member
A new process stores carbon dioxide in precast concrete
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/21117/
A Canadian company says that it has developed a way for makers of precast concrete products to take all the carbon-dioxide emissions from their factories, as well as neighboring industrial facilities, and store them in the products that they produce by exposing concrete slurry to carbon-dioxide-rich flue gases during the curing process. Industry experts say that the technology is unproven but holds great potential if it works.
Concrete accounts for more than 5 percent of human-caused carbon-dioxide emissions annually, mostly because cement, the active ingredient in concrete, is made by baking limestone and clay powders under intense heat that is generally produced by the burning of fossil fuels. Making finished concrete products--by mixing cement with water, sand, and gravel--creates additional emissions because heat and steam are often used to accelerate the curing process.
But Robert Niven, founder of Halifax-based Carbon Sense Solutions, says that his company's process would actually allow precast concrete to store carbon dioxide. The company takes advantage of a natural process; carbon dioxide is already reabsorbed in concrete products over hundreds of years from natural chemical reactions. Freshly mixed concrete is exposed to a stream of carbon-dioxide-rich flue gas, rapidly speeding up the reactions between the gas and the calcium-containing minerals in cement (which represents about 10 to 15 percent of the concrete's volume). The technology also virtually eliminates the need for heat or steam, saving energy and emissions.
Work is expected to begin on a pilot plant in the province of Nova Scotia this summer, with preliminary results expected by the end of the year. If it works and is widely adopted, it has the potential to sequester or avoid 20 percent of all cement-industry carbon-dioxide emissions, says Niven. "If the technology is commercialized as planned, it will revolutionize concrete manufacturing and mitigate hundreds of megatons of carbon dioxide each year, while providing manufacturers with a cheaper, greener, and superior product." He adds that 60 tons of carbon dioxide could be stored as solid limestone--or calcium carbonate--within every 1,000 tons of concrete produced. Further, he claims that the end product is more durable, more resistant to shrinking and cracking, and less permeable to water.
"It almost sounds too good to be true," says civil engineer Rick Bohan, director of construction and manufacturing technologies at the Portland Cement Association, in Skokie, Illinois. He points out that the idea of concrete carbonation has been around for decades but has never been economical as a way to strengthen or improve the finished product. In the late 1990s, researchers showed how carbon dioxide could be turned into a supercritical fluid and injected into concrete to make it stronger, but the required high pressures made the process too energy intensive. Carbon Sense Solutions claims to achieve the same goal but under atmospheric pressure and without the need for special curing chambers. "I'd be really skeptical," adds Bohan. "But if someone has a revolutionary process, we'd love to see it."
Precast concrete products represent between 10 and 15 percent of the North American cement and concrete market. While the figure in some European markets is 40 percent, most concrete is mixed and poured at construction sites outside the control of a factory setting (and Carbon Sense Solutions' process). "Considering concrete is the most abundant man-made material on earth, and that the precast market is growing, the estimated carbon dioxide storage potential of this is 500 megatons a year," Niven says. "That is on par with other global carbon dioxide mitigation solutions, such as carbon capture and geological storage."
Research professor Tarun Naik, director of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Center for By-Products Utilization, says that all concrete absorbs carbon dioxide over time if left to cure naturally--but only up to a point. The gas usually penetrates the first one or two millimeters of the concrete's surface before forming a hard crust that blocks any further absorption. Naik says that something as simple as using less sand in a concrete mix can increase the porosity of the finished product and allow more ambient carbon dioxide to be absorbed into the concrete. It's simpler than Carbon Sense Solutions' accelerated curing process and can be applied to a much larger market, he says.
Other groups are taking aim at emissions from the cement-making process itself. Researchers at MIT are seeking new ingredients in cement that are less energy intensive, while companies such as Montreal's CO2 Solution have an enzymatic approach that captures carbon-dioxide emissions from cement-factory flue stacks, converts the greenhouse gas into limestone, and feeds it back into the cement-making process. Calera, backed by venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, even claims that it can remove a ton of carbon dioxide from the environment for every ton of cement it produces.
Copyright Technology Review 2008.
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/21117/
A Canadian company says that it has developed a way for makers of precast concrete products to take all the carbon-dioxide emissions from their factories, as well as neighboring industrial facilities, and store them in the products that they produce by exposing concrete slurry to carbon-dioxide-rich flue gases during the curing process. Industry experts say that the technology is unproven but holds great potential if it works.
Concrete accounts for more than 5 percent of human-caused carbon-dioxide emissions annually, mostly because cement, the active ingredient in concrete, is made by baking limestone and clay powders under intense heat that is generally produced by the burning of fossil fuels. Making finished concrete products--by mixing cement with water, sand, and gravel--creates additional emissions because heat and steam are often used to accelerate the curing process.
But Robert Niven, founder of Halifax-based Carbon Sense Solutions, says that his company's process would actually allow precast concrete to store carbon dioxide. The company takes advantage of a natural process; carbon dioxide is already reabsorbed in concrete products over hundreds of years from natural chemical reactions. Freshly mixed concrete is exposed to a stream of carbon-dioxide-rich flue gas, rapidly speeding up the reactions between the gas and the calcium-containing minerals in cement (which represents about 10 to 15 percent of the concrete's volume). The technology also virtually eliminates the need for heat or steam, saving energy and emissions.
Work is expected to begin on a pilot plant in the province of Nova Scotia this summer, with preliminary results expected by the end of the year. If it works and is widely adopted, it has the potential to sequester or avoid 20 percent of all cement-industry carbon-dioxide emissions, says Niven. "If the technology is commercialized as planned, it will revolutionize concrete manufacturing and mitigate hundreds of megatons of carbon dioxide each year, while providing manufacturers with a cheaper, greener, and superior product." He adds that 60 tons of carbon dioxide could be stored as solid limestone--or calcium carbonate--within every 1,000 tons of concrete produced. Further, he claims that the end product is more durable, more resistant to shrinking and cracking, and less permeable to water.
"It almost sounds too good to be true," says civil engineer Rick Bohan, director of construction and manufacturing technologies at the Portland Cement Association, in Skokie, Illinois. He points out that the idea of concrete carbonation has been around for decades but has never been economical as a way to strengthen or improve the finished product. In the late 1990s, researchers showed how carbon dioxide could be turned into a supercritical fluid and injected into concrete to make it stronger, but the required high pressures made the process too energy intensive. Carbon Sense Solutions claims to achieve the same goal but under atmospheric pressure and without the need for special curing chambers. "I'd be really skeptical," adds Bohan. "But if someone has a revolutionary process, we'd love to see it."
Precast concrete products represent between 10 and 15 percent of the North American cement and concrete market. While the figure in some European markets is 40 percent, most concrete is mixed and poured at construction sites outside the control of a factory setting (and Carbon Sense Solutions' process). "Considering concrete is the most abundant man-made material on earth, and that the precast market is growing, the estimated carbon dioxide storage potential of this is 500 megatons a year," Niven says. "That is on par with other global carbon dioxide mitigation solutions, such as carbon capture and geological storage."
Research professor Tarun Naik, director of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Center for By-Products Utilization, says that all concrete absorbs carbon dioxide over time if left to cure naturally--but only up to a point. The gas usually penetrates the first one or two millimeters of the concrete's surface before forming a hard crust that blocks any further absorption. Naik says that something as simple as using less sand in a concrete mix can increase the porosity of the finished product and allow more ambient carbon dioxide to be absorbed into the concrete. It's simpler than Carbon Sense Solutions' accelerated curing process and can be applied to a much larger market, he says.
Other groups are taking aim at emissions from the cement-making process itself. Researchers at MIT are seeking new ingredients in cement that are less energy intensive, while companies such as Montreal's CO2 Solution have an enzymatic approach that captures carbon-dioxide emissions from cement-factory flue stacks, converts the greenhouse gas into limestone, and feeds it back into the cement-making process. Calera, backed by venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, even claims that it can remove a ton of carbon dioxide from the environment for every ton of cement it produces.
Copyright Technology Review 2008.
TKTKTK
Senior Member
Utilities say grid can handle rechargeable cars
As long as the changeover from gas-powered cars to electric is gradual, the utilities should be able to cope.
TOM KRISHER, Associated Press
July 23, 2008 at 11:43 AM EDT
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Which draws more juice from the electric grid, a big-screen plasma television or recharging a plug-in hybrid car?
The answer — a plasma television — is what is easing the minds of utility company executives across the U.S. as they plan for what is likely to be a conversion of much of the country's vehicle fleet from gasoline to electricity in the coming years.
Plasma TVs, industry officials say, consume about four times the electricity as recharging a plug-in hybrid. Yet utilities have managed to cope with the increased loads as thousands of new televisions came on line.
So as long as the changeover from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles is somewhat gradual, they should be able to handle it in the same way, Mark Duvall, program manager for electric transportation, power delivery and distribution for the Electric Power Research Institute, said Tuesday.
"We've already added to the grid the equivalent of several years' production of plug-in hybrids," Duvall said at a conference on electric vehicles in San Jose. "The utilities, they stuck with it. They said, 'All right, that's what's happening. This is where the loads are going, and we're going to do this."'
Auto makers, such as General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp., are planning to bring rechargeable vehicles to the market as early as 2010. But speakers at the Plug-In 2008 conference say it will take much longer for them to arrive in mass numbers, due in part to a current lack of large-battery manufacturing capacity. Auto and battery companies still are working on the lithium-ion battery technology needed for the cars, and on how to link the battery packs to the vehicles.
"We see the vehicle penetration levels coming at a rate that's manageable," said Efrain Ornelas, environmental technical supervisor with Pacific Gas and Electric Co. in San Francisco. "It's not like tomorrow the flood gates are going to open and 100,000 vehicles are going to come into San Francisco or something like that."
Instead, the vehicles will show up by the thousands throughout Northern California, he predicted. PG&E will be able to track their charging patterns and plan accordingly for the future, he said.
Utility officials say they already are coping with increased demand, especially during peak-use periods in the afternoon and early evening. But the rest of the day, most utilities have excess generating capacity that could be used to recharge cars.
But the preparation doesn't mean electric vehicles will be accommodated without problems and good planning, the officials say.
Since most electric cars will likely be charged during off-peak electric use times, utilities should have no problem generating enough electricity. But since people with the means to buy electric cars likely will live in the same areas, utilities worry about stress on their distribution systems, Ornelas said.
That means consumers will face a lot of choices about when and where they charge up their cars and how much they want to pay for the electricity.
The choice for consumers will come because utilities likely will raise rates to charge cars during peak use times, generally from around noon to 8 p.m., and lower them for charging during low-use hours, industry officials say.
In California, utilities already are installing meters that track use by time of day. PG&E charges 30 cents per kilowatt hour to charge an electric vehicle during peak hours, he said, but charges only five cents from midnight to 7 p.m.
Duvall said utilities still have to be wary that high gasoline prices could push sales of rechargeable electric vehicles well into the millions by 2020, because that could stress the system. Other possible problems include electric vehicles getting larger and requiring far more electricity for recharging, and demands from people that their vehicles be recharged quickly, drawing more electricity during peak times.
Also, companies such as the Campbell-based Coulomb Technologies, are starting to develop recharging stations for sale to parking lot operators, office buildings and cities, which will draw more electricity.
There's also talk of the cars storing electricity and sending it back to the power companies during peak times, but officials say that's a long way off.
Industry officials say they can manage the fleet changeover as the cars and the utilities each have computers in place to manage when the cars are recharged.
"From our perspective I think it's something that's really manageable," said Ornelas.
As long as the changeover from gas-powered cars to electric is gradual, the utilities should be able to cope.
TOM KRISHER, Associated Press
July 23, 2008 at 11:43 AM EDT
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Which draws more juice from the electric grid, a big-screen plasma television or recharging a plug-in hybrid car?
The answer — a plasma television — is what is easing the minds of utility company executives across the U.S. as they plan for what is likely to be a conversion of much of the country's vehicle fleet from gasoline to electricity in the coming years.
Plasma TVs, industry officials say, consume about four times the electricity as recharging a plug-in hybrid. Yet utilities have managed to cope with the increased loads as thousands of new televisions came on line.
So as long as the changeover from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles is somewhat gradual, they should be able to handle it in the same way, Mark Duvall, program manager for electric transportation, power delivery and distribution for the Electric Power Research Institute, said Tuesday.
"We've already added to the grid the equivalent of several years' production of plug-in hybrids," Duvall said at a conference on electric vehicles in San Jose. "The utilities, they stuck with it. They said, 'All right, that's what's happening. This is where the loads are going, and we're going to do this."'
Auto makers, such as General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp., are planning to bring rechargeable vehicles to the market as early as 2010. But speakers at the Plug-In 2008 conference say it will take much longer for them to arrive in mass numbers, due in part to a current lack of large-battery manufacturing capacity. Auto and battery companies still are working on the lithium-ion battery technology needed for the cars, and on how to link the battery packs to the vehicles.
"We see the vehicle penetration levels coming at a rate that's manageable," said Efrain Ornelas, environmental technical supervisor with Pacific Gas and Electric Co. in San Francisco. "It's not like tomorrow the flood gates are going to open and 100,000 vehicles are going to come into San Francisco or something like that."
Instead, the vehicles will show up by the thousands throughout Northern California, he predicted. PG&E will be able to track their charging patterns and plan accordingly for the future, he said.
Utility officials say they already are coping with increased demand, especially during peak-use periods in the afternoon and early evening. But the rest of the day, most utilities have excess generating capacity that could be used to recharge cars.
But the preparation doesn't mean electric vehicles will be accommodated without problems and good planning, the officials say.
Since most electric cars will likely be charged during off-peak electric use times, utilities should have no problem generating enough electricity. But since people with the means to buy electric cars likely will live in the same areas, utilities worry about stress on their distribution systems, Ornelas said.
That means consumers will face a lot of choices about when and where they charge up their cars and how much they want to pay for the electricity.
The choice for consumers will come because utilities likely will raise rates to charge cars during peak use times, generally from around noon to 8 p.m., and lower them for charging during low-use hours, industry officials say.
In California, utilities already are installing meters that track use by time of day. PG&E charges 30 cents per kilowatt hour to charge an electric vehicle during peak hours, he said, but charges only five cents from midnight to 7 p.m.
Duvall said utilities still have to be wary that high gasoline prices could push sales of rechargeable electric vehicles well into the millions by 2020, because that could stress the system. Other possible problems include electric vehicles getting larger and requiring far more electricity for recharging, and demands from people that their vehicles be recharged quickly, drawing more electricity during peak times.
Also, companies such as the Campbell-based Coulomb Technologies, are starting to develop recharging stations for sale to parking lot operators, office buildings and cities, which will draw more electricity.
There's also talk of the cars storing electricity and sending it back to the power companies during peak times, but officials say that's a long way off.
Industry officials say they can manage the fleet changeover as the cars and the utilities each have computers in place to manage when the cars are recharged.
"From our perspective I think it's something that's really manageable," said Ornelas.
Archivist
Senior Member
TKetc., nice to hear there is optimism out there. I don't frankly understand much about the electrical grid, and it hasn't been my main focus when I research energy, but there are lots of opposing viewpoints. This article below, for instance, with lots of external references, seems a lot more thoughtful and complete than the AP piece you have posted. It, too, concentrates on the US grid, but I don't believe ours in Canada is substantially different in being a somewhat haphazardly developed operation. When I read articles like this, below, what I see between the lines is money - that for a transition to electricity on a much wider scale substantial investment will need to be made - making the price of energy higher.
Note: some graphs originally accompanied this article, but Photobucket is doing maintenance so I could not load them right away. Will try later.
The U. S. Electric Grid: Will It Be Our Undoing?
Posted by Gail on May 11, 2008 - 12:00pm
Quite a few people believe that if there is a decline in oil production, we can make up much of the difference by increasing our use of electricity--more nuclear, wind, solar voltaic, geothermal or even coal. The problem with this model is that it assumes that our electric grid will be working well enough for this to happen. It seems to me that there is substantial doubt that this will be the case.
From what I have learned in researching this topic, I expect that in the years ahead, we in the United States will have more and more problems with our electric grid. This is likely to result in electrical outages of greater and greater durations.
The primary reason for the likely problems is the fact that in the last few decades, the electric power industry has moved from being a regulated monopoly to an industry following more of a free market, competitive model. With this financing model, electricity is transported over long distances, as electricity is bought and sold by different providers. Furthermore, some of the electricity that is bought and sold is variable in supply, like wind and solar voltaic. A substantial upgrade to the electrical grid is needed to support all of these activities, but our existing financing models make it very difficult to fund such an upgrade.
If frequent electrical outages become common, these problems are likely to spill over into the oil and natural gas sectors. One reason this may happen is because electricity is used to move oil and natural gas through the pipelines. In addition, gas stations use electricity when pumping gasoline, and homeowners often have natural gas water heaters and furnaces with electric ignition. These too are likely to be disrupted by electrical power outages.
Introduction
The whole discussion of electric grids may be a foreign topic for some readers. Because of this, let me start off with a couple of analogies:
1. Sometimes the analogy of water in pipelines is used as being similar to electricity and the electric grid. Transmission lines are like pipes. Voltage is like water pressure that forces electricity over long distances. Amperage is the amount of water flowing through the pipe. Our big challenge is that what we want the pipes to do is constantly changing, because of regional load shifting, peak demand, and intermittent generation. Sometimes we are slamming the system with a large slug of water. At other times, we have a trickle, but we still want an even flow out of the faucet. With these stresses, it is easy for the electrical system to get the equivalent of banging pipes and chattering faucets.
2. When I rented my first apartment in graduate school, I soon discovered it had exactly two 15 amp circuits. If I wanted a window air conditioner, it needed to be a small one, and it needed to be on the opposite circuit from the refrigerator. If I wanted to use an electric iron, I needed to think carefully regarding where I could plug it in, without blowing a fuse. I always needed to be aware of what was running on which circuit, if I wanted to keep the lights on.
The US electric grid is clearly not as bad as the wiring on my first apartment, but there are some similarities. The grid dates from a period not too much after the wiring in my apartment.
The US Electrical Grid in the 1960s
The current electric grid has its origins in the 1960s. One article noted that our current grid dates from the time when Frank Sinatra was in his prime, before a man walked on the moon, and before cell phones were invented.
At that time, electric utilities were pretty much local operations. Each utility was vertically integrated--that is, handled the entire supply chain of electricity production and distribution. The transmission system was set up so as to optimally serve its local area. There were some transmission lines to nearby utilities for use in emergencies, but the transmission grid was mostly set up to serve local customers.
Utilities were generally regulated as monopolies, and allowed to pass costs on to customers. One of the utility's costs was the upkeep of transmission lines. Since these were necessary for operation, these were kept in good repair.
This model seemed to work for the electric system of the day. The most important law at that time was the Public Utility Holding Company Act (PUHCA), passed in 1935. Under PUCHA, electricity was a regulated industry, covering both generation and transmission.
Partial Deregulation of the Electric Industry
Starting in the late 1970s, deregulation became the fashion for many industries, including trucking, airlines, natural gas, telecommunications, banking, and health care. The law that opened the door to partial electricity deregulation was the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act of 1980 (PURPA), passed when Jimmy Carter was president. The law was intended to encourage efficiency in electricity production and to help the "little guy".
Under PURPA, a utility was forced to purchase electricity from any "qualified" producer. To qualify, a system either had to produce electricity using an alternative source such as wind or solar, or had to meet a very modest efficiency standard. Natural gas production could qualify under the efficiency standard.
In the years after 1980, there was a move toward free market economics and capitalism. Under the new model, the purpose of a utility was to make money for its stockholders. Growth was an important objective. In some states utilities were forced to divest of their assets, with the idea that the smaller pieces would encourage competition. Power plants were bought and sold, and the new buyers were not necessarily in the utility business. Some buyers were hedge funds.
Electricity became a commodity like any other commodity, with widespread trading in electricity contracts, futures, and other derivatives. The financing model even included securitization, using bonds backed by future revenues related to planned recovery of stranded costs. At one point, marketing of electrical energy became a huge source of revenue, apart from the actual generation of the revenue.
After a few years of trying to the new system, some of the problems of the new approach became clear. In 2001, Enron's manipulations of market prices became apparent, and in December 2001, it filed for bankruptcy. There were also a number of other new entrants into the electricity business that also failed, including Mirrant Corporation and Allegheny Energy.
Since 2001, there has been some back-pedaling at the state level on deregulation, with a number of states suspending deregulation. At the federal level, the push has been in the direction of competition, but with more federal oversight. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 repealed PUHCA (the 1935 act which enabled local monopolies), but gave the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) a bigger role in the oversight of power transmission. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 also gives FERC oversight of an industry self-regulatory organization called North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC).
Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) makes yet another stab at helping the grid. Title XIII of ESIA establishes a national policy for grid modernization, creates new federal committees, defines their roles and responsibilities, addresses accountability and provides incentives for stakeholders to invest. The act only "authorizes" these activities, but does not actually provide funding. As far as I know, the funding has not yet happened.
With these changes, the industry continues to be much more fragmented than it was prior to deregulation. There is some state regulation, but the model of financial profitability and growth continues to play a big role. There is still widespread trading of electricity across long distances and use of derivatives and other financial instruments. The federal government has taken some steps toward more direct involvement, but it is difficult to do very much very quickly in such a fragmented industry.
What happens to transmission under deregulation?
When a utility's primary role is taking care of its own customers, there is a strong incentive to carefully maintain its transmission and distribution system. Once the system is divided into many competing entities, many of whom do not have financial ownership of the transmission system, the situation changes significantly. Some of the impacts include:
1. Declining investment. There is less incentive to maintain transmission lines, since under a fractured system, no one has real responsibility for the lines. Also, profits are higher if equipment is allowed to run until it fails, rather than replacing parts as they approach the ends of their useful lives.
2. Overuse of lines between systems. Prior to deregulation, transmission lines between utilities were designed for use primarily in emergencies. Once widespread trading of electricity began, lines between utilities are put into much heavier use than they had been designed to handle.
3. More rapid deterioration. After deregulation, there is much more cycling on and off of power plants and the structures involved in transmission, to maximize profits by selling electrical power from the plant that can produce it most cheaply. This results in metal parts being heated and cooled repeatedly, causing the metal parts to deteriorate more quickly than they normally would.
4. Unplanned additions to grid. Wind and solar are added to the grid, with the expectation that the grid will accommodate them. "Merchant" (investor owned) natural gas power plants are also added to the grid, sometimes without adequate consideration as to whether sufficient grid capacity exists to accommodate the additional production.
5. Difficulty in assigning costs back. Since the industry is more fragmented, if any transmission lines are added, the cost must somehow be allocated back to the many participants who will benefit. Ultimately, the cost must be paid by a consumer. These consumer rates may in fact be regulated, so it may be difficult to recover the additional cost.
6. Increased line congestion. There is a need for more long distance transmission lines, because of all of the energy trading. There is a great deal of NIMBYism, so approval for placement of new lines is very difficult to obtain. The result is fewer transmission lines than would be preferred, resulting in more and more line congestion.
7. No overall plan. There is a need for an overall plan for an improved system, but with so many players, and so much difficulty in assigning costs to players, very little happens.
8. Little incentive to add generating capacity. As long as there is a possibility of purchasing power elsewhere, there is little incentive to add productive capacity. Profits will be maximized by keeping the system running at as close to capacity as possible, whether or not this causes occasional blackouts.
What do industry leaders say about the U. S. Electric Grid?
It is hard to find anyone who has anything very complimentary to say about the US grid. When Bill Richardson was energy secretary during the Clinton administration, he called the grid a third-world grid.
The Report Card for America's Infrastructure, prepared by the American Society of Civil Engineers, gives the US Electric Grid a rating of D. Its summary says the following:
The U.S. power transmission system is in urgent need of modernization. Growth in electricity demand and investment in new power plants has not been matched by investment in new transmission facilities. Maintenance expenditures have decreased 1% per year since 1992. Existing transmission facilities were not designed for the current level of demand, resulting in an increased number of "bottlenecks," which increase costs to consumers and elevate the risk of blackouts.
An article from EnergyBiz by Edwin D. Hill, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, says:
The average age of power transformers in service is 40 years, which also happens to be the average lifespan of this equipment. Combine the crying need for maintenance with a shrinking workforce, and we may find that the 2005 blackout that affected parts of Canada and the northeastern United States might have been a dress rehearsal for what's to come. Deregulation and restructuring of the industry created downward pressure on recruitment, training and maintenance, and the bill is now coming due.
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) chairman Joseph Kelliher is quoted as saying:
The U.S. transmission system has suffered from underinvestment for a sustained period. In 2005, the expansion of the interstate transmission grid in terms of circuit miles was only 0.5 percent. At the same time, congestion has been rising steadily since 1998.
Transmission underinvestment is a national problem. We need a national solution. Pricing reform is an important part of the solution to this problem.
Summary of Where We Are Now
A this point, we have a grid that was designed many years ago. Many of the grid's components are near the end of their normal life spans. There is a process for getting new segments added to the grid, but it doesn't work very well. As a result, growth in transmission infrastructure tends to lag behind new additions to generating power.
One of the problems is getting permits for the siting of a new segment, when it has been approved. This can take years if local residents are opposed to additional lines in the area. One estimate is that actually getting a new transmission line installed can take up to 10 years.
Another issue is dividing up the costs among the various entities that would benefit. In some cases, there will be losers as well as winners--for example, a new line may be detrimental to a power plant that would be the low cost producer in the area, but because of the new line, a different plant from a distance can better compete. There may be several entities that benefit. There may be differences in the abilities of these organizations to charge their costs back to the ultimate customers.
There is of course the issue of obtaining funding for a new project, especially one with a very uncertain time frame. Costs relating to grid construction are increasing quite rapidly, for several reasons: Grid construction uses a lot of metals whose cost has been rising recently; China is rapidly building its grid, competing for available transformers and other components; and many of the materials are imported, and are affected by the declining dollar. In addition to the higher cost, there can also be delays in getting equipment, because of the competition from China and other buyers for available equipment.
The grid is now being used extensively for long distance transportation of electricity and for switching among providers so as to obtain electricity at the lowest cost. The grid was never designed for these uses, so it is stressed by them. One of the results is increasing congestion. One particular area of concern is the "Eastern Interconnection".
Figure 1. Figure from Department of Energy 2006 Electricity Congestion Study.
The extent to which congestion has been rising in the Eastern Interconnection is shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Slide from presentation by David Owens a 2008 EIA Conference.
While I have not shown a graph, another area with excessive congestion is Southern California. Changes to the grid structure are needed to relieve stress in this area as well.
One factor that affects line congestion is the relative cost of producing electricity for different types of fuels. The greater the differential in costs (usually natural gas higher than coal and nuclear), the more the financial incentive there is to import lower cost electricity from a distance. Natural gas prices have recently been rising. If this continues, this will put further pressure on utilities to import electricity from a distance created using coal or nuclear, rather than using locally produced electricity from natural gas.
Until now, additional wind capacity has simply piggy-backed on the general capacity of the grid. According to Stow Walker of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, spare capacity is now depleted, and new transmission capacity will need to be added to accommodate more wind energy. Even with the existing amount of wind energy (only about 9,339/405,582 = 2% of Texas's total electricity, based on EIA production data for 2007), there have been reports of near rolling-blackouts in Texas, when the amount of wind energy suddenly dropped.
In Figure 3, I list states that are importers and exporters of electricity in 2006, based on EIA data. California and many of the Eastern states are big importers. Big exporters include coal producing states like Wyoming and West Virginia, and several states with large nuclear facilities. The percentages of imports and exports shown on Figure 3 are for the full year. It is likely that during peak periods, imports and exports will be much higher percentages than the amounts shown.
Figure 3. Based on EIA Data.
Federal legislation was passed in 2005 and 2007 which should help the grid situation a little, but it still leaves the many individual operating entities to share responsibilities and costs. The basic model is still one of competition, with governmental and industry organizations trying to get the various entities to work together for the common good.
What Changes Are Needed to the Grid?
We would have a very large task if we simply wanted to fix the grid to do what it was originally planned to do, since many of the grid's elements are close to the ends of their useful lives. Unfortunately, nearly everyone who looks at the situation believes that a major upgrade to the grid is needed, rather than just patching the current system. From my reading, I have identified three basic changes that people believe to be necessary, over and above just getting the old system into better operating order. These are
1. Extra High Voltage Backbone. FERC commissioner Suedeen Kelly has been quoted as saying:
In order to truly capture not only the benefits of competition in generation but also to facilitate increased use of renewable resources, I am convinced that we will need not just to upgrade our electric grid but also to reconfigure it. We need a true nationwide transmission version of our interstate highway system; a grid of extra-high voltage backbone transmission lines reaching out to remote resources and overlaying, reinforcing, and tying together the existing grid in each interconnection to an extent never before seen. To get to that end state, we must have cost allocation provisions in place that can accommodate such wide ranging benefits.
2. Analog to Digital Grid. If we are going to enable energy efficiency, many believe we need to move from an analog to a digital grid. James Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy, says :
If you’re going to enable energy efficiency, you have to move from an analog to a digital grid with new transformers and new meters capable of two-way communication.
The Smart grid concept is very closely related to the digital grid. At the Green Intelligent Buildings Conference, keynote speaker Paul Ehrlich said:
We need to find ways to make the grid smarter, to make buildings smarter, and to have these smarts communicate with each other.
3. Real-time Transmission Monitoring System. With such a system, it would be possible to react more quickly to sudden shifts in power needs or power availability, and prevent cascading blackouts. Adopting such a system would not be simple. A 2006 study by FERC lists these steps:
• Define What a Real-Time Monitoring System is, What it Should Accomplish, and How
to Accomplish it
• Evaluate Existing Real-Time Monitoring Technologies and their Limitations
• Identify Required Communications and Related Security and Operating Issues
• Define Data Requirements
• Identify Promising Emerging Technologies
• Decide what Data Should be Shared, with Whom, and When
• Decide Who Should Operate, Use, and Maintain the System
• Identify Potential Participants Involved in Establishing a Real-Time Monitoring System
• Consider Cost and Funding Issues
How do we get from where we are now, to where we need to be, in a reasonable amount of time?
I am having a very difficult time seeing how this can be done. There are just too many entities and too many funding issues to make a transition from a neglected old system to a much-improved new system in a reasonable length of time. Our current economic model seeks growth and the maximization of profits. This economic model does not facilitate large groups of entities working together for the common good.
The transformation seems unlikely to succeed, if for no other reason than the fact that the cost of the new system is likely to be very high. Electric rates will already be increasing because of higher natural gas prices and the cost of building additional nuclear power. Adding the costs for a substantial upgrade to the transmission system at the same time would be very significant burden for the consumer. If we are dealing with peak oil at the same time, this will add an additional stress. It is difficult to believe that politicians and state regulators will allow such large costs to be passed back to consumers.
If anything would work to produce the desired result, it would seem to be something that approaches nationalization of the electric supply industry. If this were done, the problem of conflicting objectives could be greatly reduced. I have a hard time envisioning current leaders accepting such a radical approach, however.
What will happen if we just continue business as usual?
It seems to me that as more and more of transmission infrastructure exceeds its normal life expectancy, there will be more and more blackouts. Areas where there is high congestion, such as the Eastern Interconnection and Southern California, would seem to be particularly at risk. It seems like some of these blackouts could be very long (two weeks?).
With the current system, it takes longer to get new transmission lines in place than to build new natural gas or wind generating capacity. Because of this, we are gradually increasing the amount of constriction in the grid. We may have to forgo adding new generating capacity, particularly of wind, until sufficient additional transmission lines can be added.
Nuclear plants are big enough that they often can supply power to a fairly large area. If new nuclear plants are added, it may be difficult to add enough transmission lines to use the power they generate optimally. We may find ourselves able to use only part of the power the new plants are capable of generating because of transmission difficulties.
How about the longer-term outcome?
Longer term, if we cannot get the problem fixed, it seems likely that we will revert back to something closer to what we had in the 1960s, with local electric utilities serving an immediate area. There may still be some long-distance sale of electricity, but less than today, if the grid cannot support it. If some areas do not have enough locally-generated power, they may be forced to have planned blackouts, perhaps for several hours a day.
There would almost certainly be indirect impacts, if some areas of the country are subject to periodic electric outages. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, there may be impacts on oil and natural gas use, either because of problems with pipelines, or because of problems with people's equipment that uses natural gas, but has electric ignition.
It is hard to know where the impact of intermittent electricity would end. For example, electric power plants currently get their fuel from very long distances. Georgia imports coal from Wyoming to run its power plants. Most uranium is imported from overseas. It is possible that some of these supply lines could be interrupted as an indirect result of the electricity disruptions, further disrupting electric power. The interconnections of electricity with petroleum, natural gas, and other operations could be the topic of another post.
If we cannot get the electrical grid upgraded, it seems like we will need to downgrade our expectations for applications such as electrified rail and plug-in electric hybrid cars. These will work much less well if there are frequent electric outages in much of the country. We may also need to downgrade our expectation for newer renewables because of the intermittent nature of their output, and the inability of local grids to handle this type of input. Efforts at higher efficiency may also be hindered, if we are unable to make the grid "smart".
References
I link to a number of studies and presentations in the post. In addition, I should also mention:
Electricity: 30 Years of Industry Change Presentation by David K. Owens, Executive Vice President, Edison Electric Institute, April 7, 2008.
Light's Out: The Electricity Crisis, the Global Economy, and What It Means to You by Jason Makanski, published by John Wiley in 2007.
Lines Lacking to Transmit Wind Energy USA Today, February 26, 2008.
State Almost Saw Rolling Blackouts Dallas Morning News, February 28, 2008.
2007 Long-term Reliability Assessment North American Electric Reliability Corporation.
Previous Electricity Article
US Electricity Supply Vulnerabilities
Note: some graphs originally accompanied this article, but Photobucket is doing maintenance so I could not load them right away. Will try later.
The U. S. Electric Grid: Will It Be Our Undoing?
Posted by Gail on May 11, 2008 - 12:00pm
Quite a few people believe that if there is a decline in oil production, we can make up much of the difference by increasing our use of electricity--more nuclear, wind, solar voltaic, geothermal or even coal. The problem with this model is that it assumes that our electric grid will be working well enough for this to happen. It seems to me that there is substantial doubt that this will be the case.
From what I have learned in researching this topic, I expect that in the years ahead, we in the United States will have more and more problems with our electric grid. This is likely to result in electrical outages of greater and greater durations.
The primary reason for the likely problems is the fact that in the last few decades, the electric power industry has moved from being a regulated monopoly to an industry following more of a free market, competitive model. With this financing model, electricity is transported over long distances, as electricity is bought and sold by different providers. Furthermore, some of the electricity that is bought and sold is variable in supply, like wind and solar voltaic. A substantial upgrade to the electrical grid is needed to support all of these activities, but our existing financing models make it very difficult to fund such an upgrade.
If frequent electrical outages become common, these problems are likely to spill over into the oil and natural gas sectors. One reason this may happen is because electricity is used to move oil and natural gas through the pipelines. In addition, gas stations use electricity when pumping gasoline, and homeowners often have natural gas water heaters and furnaces with electric ignition. These too are likely to be disrupted by electrical power outages.
Introduction
The whole discussion of electric grids may be a foreign topic for some readers. Because of this, let me start off with a couple of analogies:
1. Sometimes the analogy of water in pipelines is used as being similar to electricity and the electric grid. Transmission lines are like pipes. Voltage is like water pressure that forces electricity over long distances. Amperage is the amount of water flowing through the pipe. Our big challenge is that what we want the pipes to do is constantly changing, because of regional load shifting, peak demand, and intermittent generation. Sometimes we are slamming the system with a large slug of water. At other times, we have a trickle, but we still want an even flow out of the faucet. With these stresses, it is easy for the electrical system to get the equivalent of banging pipes and chattering faucets.
2. When I rented my first apartment in graduate school, I soon discovered it had exactly two 15 amp circuits. If I wanted a window air conditioner, it needed to be a small one, and it needed to be on the opposite circuit from the refrigerator. If I wanted to use an electric iron, I needed to think carefully regarding where I could plug it in, without blowing a fuse. I always needed to be aware of what was running on which circuit, if I wanted to keep the lights on.
The US electric grid is clearly not as bad as the wiring on my first apartment, but there are some similarities. The grid dates from a period not too much after the wiring in my apartment.
The US Electrical Grid in the 1960s
The current electric grid has its origins in the 1960s. One article noted that our current grid dates from the time when Frank Sinatra was in his prime, before a man walked on the moon, and before cell phones were invented.
At that time, electric utilities were pretty much local operations. Each utility was vertically integrated--that is, handled the entire supply chain of electricity production and distribution. The transmission system was set up so as to optimally serve its local area. There were some transmission lines to nearby utilities for use in emergencies, but the transmission grid was mostly set up to serve local customers.
Utilities were generally regulated as monopolies, and allowed to pass costs on to customers. One of the utility's costs was the upkeep of transmission lines. Since these were necessary for operation, these were kept in good repair.
This model seemed to work for the electric system of the day. The most important law at that time was the Public Utility Holding Company Act (PUHCA), passed in 1935. Under PUCHA, electricity was a regulated industry, covering both generation and transmission.
Partial Deregulation of the Electric Industry
Starting in the late 1970s, deregulation became the fashion for many industries, including trucking, airlines, natural gas, telecommunications, banking, and health care. The law that opened the door to partial electricity deregulation was the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act of 1980 (PURPA), passed when Jimmy Carter was president. The law was intended to encourage efficiency in electricity production and to help the "little guy".
Under PURPA, a utility was forced to purchase electricity from any "qualified" producer. To qualify, a system either had to produce electricity using an alternative source such as wind or solar, or had to meet a very modest efficiency standard. Natural gas production could qualify under the efficiency standard.
In the years after 1980, there was a move toward free market economics and capitalism. Under the new model, the purpose of a utility was to make money for its stockholders. Growth was an important objective. In some states utilities were forced to divest of their assets, with the idea that the smaller pieces would encourage competition. Power plants were bought and sold, and the new buyers were not necessarily in the utility business. Some buyers were hedge funds.
Electricity became a commodity like any other commodity, with widespread trading in electricity contracts, futures, and other derivatives. The financing model even included securitization, using bonds backed by future revenues related to planned recovery of stranded costs. At one point, marketing of electrical energy became a huge source of revenue, apart from the actual generation of the revenue.
After a few years of trying to the new system, some of the problems of the new approach became clear. In 2001, Enron's manipulations of market prices became apparent, and in December 2001, it filed for bankruptcy. There were also a number of other new entrants into the electricity business that also failed, including Mirrant Corporation and Allegheny Energy.
Since 2001, there has been some back-pedaling at the state level on deregulation, with a number of states suspending deregulation. At the federal level, the push has been in the direction of competition, but with more federal oversight. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 repealed PUHCA (the 1935 act which enabled local monopolies), but gave the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) a bigger role in the oversight of power transmission. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 also gives FERC oversight of an industry self-regulatory organization called North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC).
Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) makes yet another stab at helping the grid. Title XIII of ESIA establishes a national policy for grid modernization, creates new federal committees, defines their roles and responsibilities, addresses accountability and provides incentives for stakeholders to invest. The act only "authorizes" these activities, but does not actually provide funding. As far as I know, the funding has not yet happened.
With these changes, the industry continues to be much more fragmented than it was prior to deregulation. There is some state regulation, but the model of financial profitability and growth continues to play a big role. There is still widespread trading of electricity across long distances and use of derivatives and other financial instruments. The federal government has taken some steps toward more direct involvement, but it is difficult to do very much very quickly in such a fragmented industry.
What happens to transmission under deregulation?
When a utility's primary role is taking care of its own customers, there is a strong incentive to carefully maintain its transmission and distribution system. Once the system is divided into many competing entities, many of whom do not have financial ownership of the transmission system, the situation changes significantly. Some of the impacts include:
1. Declining investment. There is less incentive to maintain transmission lines, since under a fractured system, no one has real responsibility for the lines. Also, profits are higher if equipment is allowed to run until it fails, rather than replacing parts as they approach the ends of their useful lives.
2. Overuse of lines between systems. Prior to deregulation, transmission lines between utilities were designed for use primarily in emergencies. Once widespread trading of electricity began, lines between utilities are put into much heavier use than they had been designed to handle.
3. More rapid deterioration. After deregulation, there is much more cycling on and off of power plants and the structures involved in transmission, to maximize profits by selling electrical power from the plant that can produce it most cheaply. This results in metal parts being heated and cooled repeatedly, causing the metal parts to deteriorate more quickly than they normally would.
4. Unplanned additions to grid. Wind and solar are added to the grid, with the expectation that the grid will accommodate them. "Merchant" (investor owned) natural gas power plants are also added to the grid, sometimes without adequate consideration as to whether sufficient grid capacity exists to accommodate the additional production.
5. Difficulty in assigning costs back. Since the industry is more fragmented, if any transmission lines are added, the cost must somehow be allocated back to the many participants who will benefit. Ultimately, the cost must be paid by a consumer. These consumer rates may in fact be regulated, so it may be difficult to recover the additional cost.
6. Increased line congestion. There is a need for more long distance transmission lines, because of all of the energy trading. There is a great deal of NIMBYism, so approval for placement of new lines is very difficult to obtain. The result is fewer transmission lines than would be preferred, resulting in more and more line congestion.
7. No overall plan. There is a need for an overall plan for an improved system, but with so many players, and so much difficulty in assigning costs to players, very little happens.
8. Little incentive to add generating capacity. As long as there is a possibility of purchasing power elsewhere, there is little incentive to add productive capacity. Profits will be maximized by keeping the system running at as close to capacity as possible, whether or not this causes occasional blackouts.
What do industry leaders say about the U. S. Electric Grid?
It is hard to find anyone who has anything very complimentary to say about the US grid. When Bill Richardson was energy secretary during the Clinton administration, he called the grid a third-world grid.
The Report Card for America's Infrastructure, prepared by the American Society of Civil Engineers, gives the US Electric Grid a rating of D. Its summary says the following:
The U.S. power transmission system is in urgent need of modernization. Growth in electricity demand and investment in new power plants has not been matched by investment in new transmission facilities. Maintenance expenditures have decreased 1% per year since 1992. Existing transmission facilities were not designed for the current level of demand, resulting in an increased number of "bottlenecks," which increase costs to consumers and elevate the risk of blackouts.
An article from EnergyBiz by Edwin D. Hill, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, says:
The average age of power transformers in service is 40 years, which also happens to be the average lifespan of this equipment. Combine the crying need for maintenance with a shrinking workforce, and we may find that the 2005 blackout that affected parts of Canada and the northeastern United States might have been a dress rehearsal for what's to come. Deregulation and restructuring of the industry created downward pressure on recruitment, training and maintenance, and the bill is now coming due.
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) chairman Joseph Kelliher is quoted as saying:
The U.S. transmission system has suffered from underinvestment for a sustained period. In 2005, the expansion of the interstate transmission grid in terms of circuit miles was only 0.5 percent. At the same time, congestion has been rising steadily since 1998.
Transmission underinvestment is a national problem. We need a national solution. Pricing reform is an important part of the solution to this problem.
Summary of Where We Are Now
A this point, we have a grid that was designed many years ago. Many of the grid's components are near the end of their normal life spans. There is a process for getting new segments added to the grid, but it doesn't work very well. As a result, growth in transmission infrastructure tends to lag behind new additions to generating power.
One of the problems is getting permits for the siting of a new segment, when it has been approved. This can take years if local residents are opposed to additional lines in the area. One estimate is that actually getting a new transmission line installed can take up to 10 years.
Another issue is dividing up the costs among the various entities that would benefit. In some cases, there will be losers as well as winners--for example, a new line may be detrimental to a power plant that would be the low cost producer in the area, but because of the new line, a different plant from a distance can better compete. There may be several entities that benefit. There may be differences in the abilities of these organizations to charge their costs back to the ultimate customers.
There is of course the issue of obtaining funding for a new project, especially one with a very uncertain time frame. Costs relating to grid construction are increasing quite rapidly, for several reasons: Grid construction uses a lot of metals whose cost has been rising recently; China is rapidly building its grid, competing for available transformers and other components; and many of the materials are imported, and are affected by the declining dollar. In addition to the higher cost, there can also be delays in getting equipment, because of the competition from China and other buyers for available equipment.
The grid is now being used extensively for long distance transportation of electricity and for switching among providers so as to obtain electricity at the lowest cost. The grid was never designed for these uses, so it is stressed by them. One of the results is increasing congestion. One particular area of concern is the "Eastern Interconnection".
Figure 1. Figure from Department of Energy 2006 Electricity Congestion Study.
The extent to which congestion has been rising in the Eastern Interconnection is shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Slide from presentation by David Owens a 2008 EIA Conference.
While I have not shown a graph, another area with excessive congestion is Southern California. Changes to the grid structure are needed to relieve stress in this area as well.
One factor that affects line congestion is the relative cost of producing electricity for different types of fuels. The greater the differential in costs (usually natural gas higher than coal and nuclear), the more the financial incentive there is to import lower cost electricity from a distance. Natural gas prices have recently been rising. If this continues, this will put further pressure on utilities to import electricity from a distance created using coal or nuclear, rather than using locally produced electricity from natural gas.
Until now, additional wind capacity has simply piggy-backed on the general capacity of the grid. According to Stow Walker of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, spare capacity is now depleted, and new transmission capacity will need to be added to accommodate more wind energy. Even with the existing amount of wind energy (only about 9,339/405,582 = 2% of Texas's total electricity, based on EIA production data for 2007), there have been reports of near rolling-blackouts in Texas, when the amount of wind energy suddenly dropped.
In Figure 3, I list states that are importers and exporters of electricity in 2006, based on EIA data. California and many of the Eastern states are big importers. Big exporters include coal producing states like Wyoming and West Virginia, and several states with large nuclear facilities. The percentages of imports and exports shown on Figure 3 are for the full year. It is likely that during peak periods, imports and exports will be much higher percentages than the amounts shown.
Figure 3. Based on EIA Data.
Federal legislation was passed in 2005 and 2007 which should help the grid situation a little, but it still leaves the many individual operating entities to share responsibilities and costs. The basic model is still one of competition, with governmental and industry organizations trying to get the various entities to work together for the common good.
What Changes Are Needed to the Grid?
We would have a very large task if we simply wanted to fix the grid to do what it was originally planned to do, since many of the grid's elements are close to the ends of their useful lives. Unfortunately, nearly everyone who looks at the situation believes that a major upgrade to the grid is needed, rather than just patching the current system. From my reading, I have identified three basic changes that people believe to be necessary, over and above just getting the old system into better operating order. These are
1. Extra High Voltage Backbone. FERC commissioner Suedeen Kelly has been quoted as saying:
In order to truly capture not only the benefits of competition in generation but also to facilitate increased use of renewable resources, I am convinced that we will need not just to upgrade our electric grid but also to reconfigure it. We need a true nationwide transmission version of our interstate highway system; a grid of extra-high voltage backbone transmission lines reaching out to remote resources and overlaying, reinforcing, and tying together the existing grid in each interconnection to an extent never before seen. To get to that end state, we must have cost allocation provisions in place that can accommodate such wide ranging benefits.
2. Analog to Digital Grid. If we are going to enable energy efficiency, many believe we need to move from an analog to a digital grid. James Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy, says :
If you’re going to enable energy efficiency, you have to move from an analog to a digital grid with new transformers and new meters capable of two-way communication.
The Smart grid concept is very closely related to the digital grid. At the Green Intelligent Buildings Conference, keynote speaker Paul Ehrlich said:
We need to find ways to make the grid smarter, to make buildings smarter, and to have these smarts communicate with each other.
3. Real-time Transmission Monitoring System. With such a system, it would be possible to react more quickly to sudden shifts in power needs or power availability, and prevent cascading blackouts. Adopting such a system would not be simple. A 2006 study by FERC lists these steps:
• Define What a Real-Time Monitoring System is, What it Should Accomplish, and How
to Accomplish it
• Evaluate Existing Real-Time Monitoring Technologies and their Limitations
• Identify Required Communications and Related Security and Operating Issues
• Define Data Requirements
• Identify Promising Emerging Technologies
• Decide what Data Should be Shared, with Whom, and When
• Decide Who Should Operate, Use, and Maintain the System
• Identify Potential Participants Involved in Establishing a Real-Time Monitoring System
• Consider Cost and Funding Issues
How do we get from where we are now, to where we need to be, in a reasonable amount of time?
I am having a very difficult time seeing how this can be done. There are just too many entities and too many funding issues to make a transition from a neglected old system to a much-improved new system in a reasonable length of time. Our current economic model seeks growth and the maximization of profits. This economic model does not facilitate large groups of entities working together for the common good.
The transformation seems unlikely to succeed, if for no other reason than the fact that the cost of the new system is likely to be very high. Electric rates will already be increasing because of higher natural gas prices and the cost of building additional nuclear power. Adding the costs for a substantial upgrade to the transmission system at the same time would be very significant burden for the consumer. If we are dealing with peak oil at the same time, this will add an additional stress. It is difficult to believe that politicians and state regulators will allow such large costs to be passed back to consumers.
If anything would work to produce the desired result, it would seem to be something that approaches nationalization of the electric supply industry. If this were done, the problem of conflicting objectives could be greatly reduced. I have a hard time envisioning current leaders accepting such a radical approach, however.
What will happen if we just continue business as usual?
It seems to me that as more and more of transmission infrastructure exceeds its normal life expectancy, there will be more and more blackouts. Areas where there is high congestion, such as the Eastern Interconnection and Southern California, would seem to be particularly at risk. It seems like some of these blackouts could be very long (two weeks?).
With the current system, it takes longer to get new transmission lines in place than to build new natural gas or wind generating capacity. Because of this, we are gradually increasing the amount of constriction in the grid. We may have to forgo adding new generating capacity, particularly of wind, until sufficient additional transmission lines can be added.
Nuclear plants are big enough that they often can supply power to a fairly large area. If new nuclear plants are added, it may be difficult to add enough transmission lines to use the power they generate optimally. We may find ourselves able to use only part of the power the new plants are capable of generating because of transmission difficulties.
How about the longer-term outcome?
Longer term, if we cannot get the problem fixed, it seems likely that we will revert back to something closer to what we had in the 1960s, with local electric utilities serving an immediate area. There may still be some long-distance sale of electricity, but less than today, if the grid cannot support it. If some areas do not have enough locally-generated power, they may be forced to have planned blackouts, perhaps for several hours a day.
There would almost certainly be indirect impacts, if some areas of the country are subject to periodic electric outages. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, there may be impacts on oil and natural gas use, either because of problems with pipelines, or because of problems with people's equipment that uses natural gas, but has electric ignition.
It is hard to know where the impact of intermittent electricity would end. For example, electric power plants currently get their fuel from very long distances. Georgia imports coal from Wyoming to run its power plants. Most uranium is imported from overseas. It is possible that some of these supply lines could be interrupted as an indirect result of the electricity disruptions, further disrupting electric power. The interconnections of electricity with petroleum, natural gas, and other operations could be the topic of another post.
If we cannot get the electrical grid upgraded, it seems like we will need to downgrade our expectations for applications such as electrified rail and plug-in electric hybrid cars. These will work much less well if there are frequent electric outages in much of the country. We may also need to downgrade our expectation for newer renewables because of the intermittent nature of their output, and the inability of local grids to handle this type of input. Efforts at higher efficiency may also be hindered, if we are unable to make the grid "smart".
References
I link to a number of studies and presentations in the post. In addition, I should also mention:
Electricity: 30 Years of Industry Change Presentation by David K. Owens, Executive Vice President, Edison Electric Institute, April 7, 2008.
Light's Out: The Electricity Crisis, the Global Economy, and What It Means to You by Jason Makanski, published by John Wiley in 2007.
Lines Lacking to Transmit Wind Energy USA Today, February 26, 2008.
State Almost Saw Rolling Blackouts Dallas Morning News, February 28, 2008.
2007 Long-term Reliability Assessment North American Electric Reliability Corporation.
Previous Electricity Article
US Electricity Supply Vulnerabilities
TKTKTK
Senior Member
Yeah, the AP often comes up short when competing with 'Gail'.
Archivist
Senior Member
Given that the AP article quotes "industry officials", I'm not sure you're much further ahead than you are with "Gail". Looks to me like the AP article is written from a press release by people who want you to buy an electric car. At any rate, finding one article where self-interested people assure you, based on nothing, that the grid is OK, isn't really a work of genius on your part. Frankly, I think the thoughtfulness of the contents of the article I posted speak for themselves, as does your own response. Perhaps you believe everything because it's "AP". Here's a few other sources that indicate that the N. American electrical grid needs some investment.
Last October, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation published its '2007 Long-term Reliability Assessment'. The conclusions of this study are more than a little alarming.
American Scientist: The reliability of America's electric grid, which has to date been unequaled anywhere in the world, is increasingly at risk.
New York Times: That requires very detailed monitoring, which in turn requires an advanced, complex system. Critics of deregulation, like Mr. Casazza, say that the complexity of the grid, compounded by a proliferation of auction data, will lead to an increase in the number of blackouts, like the infamous 1965 New York City blackout that left 30 million people in the Northeast and Canada without power and led to a Federal push for more reliable power. (from 1999)
Right now the American electrical grid has about a 16 percent excess capacity margin. With all the additional demand coming during the winter and with supplies for natural-gas power plants in jeopardy as well, it seems plausible that my rather modest scenario could result in problems for the electrical grid.
Last October, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation published its '2007 Long-term Reliability Assessment'. The conclusions of this study are more than a little alarming.
American Scientist: The reliability of America's electric grid, which has to date been unequaled anywhere in the world, is increasingly at risk.
New York Times: That requires very detailed monitoring, which in turn requires an advanced, complex system. Critics of deregulation, like Mr. Casazza, say that the complexity of the grid, compounded by a proliferation of auction data, will lead to an increase in the number of blackouts, like the infamous 1965 New York City blackout that left 30 million people in the Northeast and Canada without power and led to a Federal push for more reliable power. (from 1999)
Right now the American electrical grid has about a 16 percent excess capacity margin. With all the additional demand coming during the winter and with supplies for natural-gas power plants in jeopardy as well, it seems plausible that my rather modest scenario could result in problems for the electrical grid.
TKTKTK
Senior Member
Lighten up, doom and gloom. It was a joke.
Dichotomy
Banned
"and we may find that the 2005 blackout that affected parts of Canada and the northeastern United States...."
????????????????????????????????
I stopped reading at that point. Is that a typo, or did somone forget to take their meds? The double whammy of SARS and the black out was not in 2005, sorry.
I have been enduring 'third world' jokes from my friends in Brazil longer than that.....
????????????????????????????????
I stopped reading at that point. Is that a typo, or did somone forget to take their meds? The double whammy of SARS and the black out was not in 2005, sorry.
I have been enduring 'third world' jokes from my friends in Brazil longer than that.....
TKTKTK
Senior Member
You really should have stuck with it. You missed this gem, near the end:
Archivist
Senior Member
Dichotomy, the blackout did occur in 2005. SARS was not mentioned in the article I posted, you brought it up for some reason that I cannot fathom. Can you not do a single Google search before posting your inane comments here? Or do you enjoy showing all the world how uninformed you are, and how you are too lazy to even do one little search to confirm a date before posting?
Anyways. Moving on.
I have always been skeptical about the motivations and the reality of those who foresee an "end to suburbia" in the near future, because of the huge investment we have as a society in suburbia, and because I think many of those people are motivated more by a distaste for suburbia than by economic realities, which I think are by far the more important drivers of behaviour.
That's why I do find it interesting that even the relatively small rise in gas prices that have occurred this year seem to be affecting behaviour and with that, the relative price of housing, if this article from the Washington Post is to be believed. I do believe that ultimately, houses far from the centre of cities will begin to lose their value as the cost of getting around the city from that base increases, but I am surprised to find it happening so quickly and I think it portends badly for the outer burbs in years ahead.
OIL SHOCK
Gas Prices Apply Brakes To Suburban Migration
By Eric M. Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 5, 2008; Page A01
That 1958 brick rambler inside the Beltway is suddenly looking a lot better to Dawn and Jeff Schaefer, who are buying their first house in Northern Virginia.
Not too long ago, they were looking farther out -- for a newer house, a bigger yard and all the amenities. But no more. "You get less house and property for the same price, but we're willing to make that sacrifice to save on gas prices and commuting costs," Dawn Schaefer said.
Cheap oil, which helped push the American Dream away from the city center, isn't so cheap anymore. As more and more families reconsider their dreams, land-use experts are beginning to ask whether $4-a-gallon gas is enough to change the way Americans have thought for half a century about where they live.
"We've passed that tipping point," U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said.
Since the end of World War II, government policy has funded and encouraged the suburban lifestyle, subsidizing highways while starving mass transit and keeping gas taxes much lower than in some other countries.
Americans couldn't wait to trade in the cramped city apartments of the Kramdens and Ricardos for the lush lawns of the Bradys. Local land-use policies kept housing densities low, pushing development to the periphery of metropolitan regions and forcing families who wanted their dream house to accept long commutes and a lack of any real transportation choices other than getting behind the wheel.
Even the way the government pays for roads and transit is dependent on gas taxes, which is effective only if Americans keep driving.
"There is a whole confluence of government policies -- tax, spending, regulatory and administrative -- that have subsidized sprawl," said Bruce Katz, director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. A gallon of gasoline costs more than $8 in Britain, Germany, France and Belgium, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Much of the price difference is due to higher taxes.
Federal spending is about 4 to 1 in favor of highways over transit. Today, more than 99 percent of the trips taken by U.S. residents are in cars or some other non-transit vehicle, largely as a result of decades of such unbalanced spending.
The policies -- building so many highways and building so many houses near those highways -- have had a direct bearing on how and where people live and work. More Americans, 52 percent, live in the suburbs than anywhere else. The suburban growth rate exceeded 90 percent in the past decade.
But there's been a radical shift in recent months. Americans drove 9.6 billion fewer highway miles in May than a year earlier. In the Washington area and elsewhere, mass transit ridership is setting records. Last year, transit trips nationwide topped 10.3 billion, a 50-year high.
Home prices in the far suburbs, such as Prince William and Loudoun counties, have collapsed; those in the District and inner suburbs have stayed the same or increased. A recent survey of real estate agents by Coldwell Banker found an increased interest in urban living because of the high cost of commuting.
Brookings says transportation costs are now second only to housing as a percentage of the household budget, with food a distant third.
The people are leading the revolution, but land-use experts wonder whether a government policy so etched into the American fabric will follow.
"When people bought homes, they punched the numbers and said can we afford the mortgage payment and taxes," Katz said. "This new paradigm is going to have families being more deliberate about the cost of transportation spending and energy costs. That's a new phenomenon in the United States. That will be the change that will change development patterns."
Katz and others said high fuel prices will increase demand for transit-oriented development, where homes, townhouses and office buildings cluster around transit hubs that link jobs with population centers.
That is Fairfax County's policy at Tysons Corner, where the Board of Supervisors has approved high-rise office buildings, condominiums, a hotel, restaurants and stores -- on the condition that the area receive four Metro stops as part of the proposed rail extension to Dulles International Airport. The idea is that residents of Tysons would never have to leave and those wishing to shop, eat or work there could leave their cars at home and take the train.
On a much smaller scale, the county, for years derided for pro-sprawl policies, has approved or is considering similar proposals near the Dunn Loring, Springfield and Vienna Metro stops. Although the policy changes were in the works before fuel costs skyrocketed, the guiding philosophy was getting people out of their cars.
"We need to change the patterns of development," said Gerald E. Connolly (D), chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. "We have to move to a new transit-oriented development paradigm and concentrate development and avoid the sprawl that we've allowed in the past and undo some of the environmental damage."
He pointed to nearby Arlington County and its Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, alive with pedestrians and dense housing development.
"We actually know it works," Connolly said.
That is also the model that Tom Darden, chief executive of Cherokee Investment Partners, is betting on. His Raleigh-based firm snaps up urban land, often used industrial sites, near transit stations and transforms it into housing.
He said the days of building giant houses on former soybean fields on the outer fringes of metropolitan areas are over.
"What were pluses of that lifestyle are now liabilities: a big SUV, a big home to heat, the energy needed to mow the lawn," he said.
He said his urban properties in Charlotte, Raleigh, N.C., Montreal and Denver are doing well, while exurbs like those in California's Central Valley are "turning into ghost towns."
In Montreal, Cherokee bought a former General Motors plant in 2004 and is creating a mixed-use development that will include 1,200 residential units on a transit line stop. In Denver, Darden's company is doing something similar with an abandoned rubber plant.
"Longer term, rising fuel prices produces a positive effect: people living closer-in and in smaller homes and close to transit," Darden said.
David Ellis, a researcher with the Texas Transportation Institute, said the desire for such development is driven by demographics and public demand, not government fiat.
"Government can facilitate only when there is a demand," Ellis said. "If government does something against the market, it is going to fail."
But density remains a tough sell to those who want a house with some land and who don't live or work where the trains go.
"It is fatuous to believe that because fuel costs $4 a gallon today that we will all decide to live in apartment houses," said Alan E. Pisarski, author of Commuting in America and a leading national expert on driving habits and trends.
"The economic reality is that people get forced to the edge of metropolitan areas," Pisarski said, adding that the decades-long outward march made economic sense in the days of lower home prices and cheaper commuting costs.
Even at these high gasoline prices, he doesn't foresee a major shift in those trends.
"The only answer over time is that the jobs come to them," he said, referring to employers moving out to be closer to their exurban workers. That phenomenon is in play in the Washington area, with high-tech jobs along the Dulles corridor and Interstate 270 in Maryland and all the government contracting work near Tysons Corner.
Pisarski and others say technological advances, telecommuting, flexible scheduling, carpooling and stringing errands together can reduce vehicle use. After all, most vehicle trips and miles are compiled not on commutes to work but on other trips. The eventual turnover of the nation's vehicle fleet, with the shift to more fuel-efficient vehicles, will also ease the pain.
Guy Saffel is thinking along those lines. Saffel, who works in the District but lives in South Riding, a fast-growing exurb near Dulles, is trying to sell his family's GMC Yukon Denali. He said he is sick of buying gas for a vehicle that gets 12 miles a gallon.
The Saffels recently upgraded to a 6,000-square-foot house that doubled their mortgage payment. Saffel, his wife and his son are living what many in the country's far-out suburbs describe as "The American Dream" of a big house, a big lawn and a big vehicle in the driveway.
"We kind of fell into the trap of our neighbors," he said.
But even though he'll trade in the Denali, he's not leaving the big house. "My son is happy with schools and friends," Saffel said. "But I'll be honest, if I was single guy -- if we didn't have a kid and my wife was for it -- I would probably move out of the area."
The debate over density is not just limited to the East and West coasts.
Mayor Randy Pye, mayor of Centennial, Colo., a suburb of Denver, has been called a socialist by fellow Republicans for his pro-density and pro-transit views. He was a supporter of the Denver area's new light-rail system, a system built largely without federal funds.
Pye said he doesn't see a way out of high gas prices and our collective national traffic jam that doesn't involve higher-density development and mass transit.
"We hate density; we hate sprawl," he said. "But we can't continue doing what we're doing."
Anyways. Moving on.
I have always been skeptical about the motivations and the reality of those who foresee an "end to suburbia" in the near future, because of the huge investment we have as a society in suburbia, and because I think many of those people are motivated more by a distaste for suburbia than by economic realities, which I think are by far the more important drivers of behaviour.
That's why I do find it interesting that even the relatively small rise in gas prices that have occurred this year seem to be affecting behaviour and with that, the relative price of housing, if this article from the Washington Post is to be believed. I do believe that ultimately, houses far from the centre of cities will begin to lose their value as the cost of getting around the city from that base increases, but I am surprised to find it happening so quickly and I think it portends badly for the outer burbs in years ahead.
OIL SHOCK
Gas Prices Apply Brakes To Suburban Migration
By Eric M. Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 5, 2008; Page A01
That 1958 brick rambler inside the Beltway is suddenly looking a lot better to Dawn and Jeff Schaefer, who are buying their first house in Northern Virginia.
Not too long ago, they were looking farther out -- for a newer house, a bigger yard and all the amenities. But no more. "You get less house and property for the same price, but we're willing to make that sacrifice to save on gas prices and commuting costs," Dawn Schaefer said.
Cheap oil, which helped push the American Dream away from the city center, isn't so cheap anymore. As more and more families reconsider their dreams, land-use experts are beginning to ask whether $4-a-gallon gas is enough to change the way Americans have thought for half a century about where they live.
"We've passed that tipping point," U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said.
Since the end of World War II, government policy has funded and encouraged the suburban lifestyle, subsidizing highways while starving mass transit and keeping gas taxes much lower than in some other countries.
Americans couldn't wait to trade in the cramped city apartments of the Kramdens and Ricardos for the lush lawns of the Bradys. Local land-use policies kept housing densities low, pushing development to the periphery of metropolitan regions and forcing families who wanted their dream house to accept long commutes and a lack of any real transportation choices other than getting behind the wheel.
Even the way the government pays for roads and transit is dependent on gas taxes, which is effective only if Americans keep driving.
"There is a whole confluence of government policies -- tax, spending, regulatory and administrative -- that have subsidized sprawl," said Bruce Katz, director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. A gallon of gasoline costs more than $8 in Britain, Germany, France and Belgium, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Much of the price difference is due to higher taxes.
Federal spending is about 4 to 1 in favor of highways over transit. Today, more than 99 percent of the trips taken by U.S. residents are in cars or some other non-transit vehicle, largely as a result of decades of such unbalanced spending.
The policies -- building so many highways and building so many houses near those highways -- have had a direct bearing on how and where people live and work. More Americans, 52 percent, live in the suburbs than anywhere else. The suburban growth rate exceeded 90 percent in the past decade.
But there's been a radical shift in recent months. Americans drove 9.6 billion fewer highway miles in May than a year earlier. In the Washington area and elsewhere, mass transit ridership is setting records. Last year, transit trips nationwide topped 10.3 billion, a 50-year high.
Home prices in the far suburbs, such as Prince William and Loudoun counties, have collapsed; those in the District and inner suburbs have stayed the same or increased. A recent survey of real estate agents by Coldwell Banker found an increased interest in urban living because of the high cost of commuting.
Brookings says transportation costs are now second only to housing as a percentage of the household budget, with food a distant third.
The people are leading the revolution, but land-use experts wonder whether a government policy so etched into the American fabric will follow.
"When people bought homes, they punched the numbers and said can we afford the mortgage payment and taxes," Katz said. "This new paradigm is going to have families being more deliberate about the cost of transportation spending and energy costs. That's a new phenomenon in the United States. That will be the change that will change development patterns."
Katz and others said high fuel prices will increase demand for transit-oriented development, where homes, townhouses and office buildings cluster around transit hubs that link jobs with population centers.
That is Fairfax County's policy at Tysons Corner, where the Board of Supervisors has approved high-rise office buildings, condominiums, a hotel, restaurants and stores -- on the condition that the area receive four Metro stops as part of the proposed rail extension to Dulles International Airport. The idea is that residents of Tysons would never have to leave and those wishing to shop, eat or work there could leave their cars at home and take the train.
On a much smaller scale, the county, for years derided for pro-sprawl policies, has approved or is considering similar proposals near the Dunn Loring, Springfield and Vienna Metro stops. Although the policy changes were in the works before fuel costs skyrocketed, the guiding philosophy was getting people out of their cars.
"We need to change the patterns of development," said Gerald E. Connolly (D), chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. "We have to move to a new transit-oriented development paradigm and concentrate development and avoid the sprawl that we've allowed in the past and undo some of the environmental damage."
He pointed to nearby Arlington County and its Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, alive with pedestrians and dense housing development.
"We actually know it works," Connolly said.
That is also the model that Tom Darden, chief executive of Cherokee Investment Partners, is betting on. His Raleigh-based firm snaps up urban land, often used industrial sites, near transit stations and transforms it into housing.
He said the days of building giant houses on former soybean fields on the outer fringes of metropolitan areas are over.
"What were pluses of that lifestyle are now liabilities: a big SUV, a big home to heat, the energy needed to mow the lawn," he said.
He said his urban properties in Charlotte, Raleigh, N.C., Montreal and Denver are doing well, while exurbs like those in California's Central Valley are "turning into ghost towns."
In Montreal, Cherokee bought a former General Motors plant in 2004 and is creating a mixed-use development that will include 1,200 residential units on a transit line stop. In Denver, Darden's company is doing something similar with an abandoned rubber plant.
"Longer term, rising fuel prices produces a positive effect: people living closer-in and in smaller homes and close to transit," Darden said.
David Ellis, a researcher with the Texas Transportation Institute, said the desire for such development is driven by demographics and public demand, not government fiat.
"Government can facilitate only when there is a demand," Ellis said. "If government does something against the market, it is going to fail."
But density remains a tough sell to those who want a house with some land and who don't live or work where the trains go.
"It is fatuous to believe that because fuel costs $4 a gallon today that we will all decide to live in apartment houses," said Alan E. Pisarski, author of Commuting in America and a leading national expert on driving habits and trends.
"The economic reality is that people get forced to the edge of metropolitan areas," Pisarski said, adding that the decades-long outward march made economic sense in the days of lower home prices and cheaper commuting costs.
Even at these high gasoline prices, he doesn't foresee a major shift in those trends.
"The only answer over time is that the jobs come to them," he said, referring to employers moving out to be closer to their exurban workers. That phenomenon is in play in the Washington area, with high-tech jobs along the Dulles corridor and Interstate 270 in Maryland and all the government contracting work near Tysons Corner.
Pisarski and others say technological advances, telecommuting, flexible scheduling, carpooling and stringing errands together can reduce vehicle use. After all, most vehicle trips and miles are compiled not on commutes to work but on other trips. The eventual turnover of the nation's vehicle fleet, with the shift to more fuel-efficient vehicles, will also ease the pain.
Guy Saffel is thinking along those lines. Saffel, who works in the District but lives in South Riding, a fast-growing exurb near Dulles, is trying to sell his family's GMC Yukon Denali. He said he is sick of buying gas for a vehicle that gets 12 miles a gallon.
The Saffels recently upgraded to a 6,000-square-foot house that doubled their mortgage payment. Saffel, his wife and his son are living what many in the country's far-out suburbs describe as "The American Dream" of a big house, a big lawn and a big vehicle in the driveway.
"We kind of fell into the trap of our neighbors," he said.
But even though he'll trade in the Denali, he's not leaving the big house. "My son is happy with schools and friends," Saffel said. "But I'll be honest, if I was single guy -- if we didn't have a kid and my wife was for it -- I would probably move out of the area."
The debate over density is not just limited to the East and West coasts.
Mayor Randy Pye, mayor of Centennial, Colo., a suburb of Denver, has been called a socialist by fellow Republicans for his pro-density and pro-transit views. He was a supporter of the Denver area's new light-rail system, a system built largely without federal funds.
Pye said he doesn't see a way out of high gas prices and our collective national traffic jam that doesn't involve higher-density development and mass transit.
"We hate density; we hate sprawl," he said. "But we can't continue doing what we're doing."
Dichotomy
Banned
The black out was on August 14, 2003. Look it up.
GraphicMatt
Looking forward to a FRESH START for Toronto
Way off. I remember being out with my friend from Brazil, walking my dog and avoiding the many, many criminals in this city, when the power went off. We saw a calendar that said '2005' shortly after. Ergo, it was 2005.
Facts don't lie.
fiendishlibrarian
Active Member
H
Hydrogen
Guest
Dichotomy
Banned
It was an attempt at humor, I think. Apparently, there are no personal anecdotes on this forum.