At last Thursday's Summit on Virginia's Energy Future in Richmond, Governor Robert McDonnell delivered a detailed talk on the state's energy opportunities and the bi-partisan commitment of the legislature and Virginia's US Senators and Congressional delegation to capitalize on them, including its offshore oil, gas and wind resources. He also declared his goal of making Virginia the "energy capital of the East Coast." While neither Virginia nor any of its neighbors up and down the coast seems likely to compete with Texas or Louisiana in total energy production, the new Governor's aspiration might be more than just wishful thinking. However, as the business and governmental leaders who spoke at the session made clear, Virginia doesn't control its own destiny in this regard. The Commonwealth's plans for tapping the value of those resources to help close its budget deficit depend on the cooperation of the US Department of the Interior (DOI), which controls the leasing and permitting process for exploration and development on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Attending the summit provided me with a much better appreciation of my state's energy situation. When we moved our family here ... read more >>
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Exxon Mobil has said that sales and purchase agreements with liquefied natural gas (LNG) buyers and financing arrangements with lenders are now complete and its affiliate, Esso Highlands, is proceeding with full execution of the Papua New Guinea (PNG) LNG project. The company said that the integrated development includes gas production and processing facilities in the Southern Highlands and Western Provinces of Papua New Guinea; liquefaction and storage facilities with capacity of 6.6 million tons per year, located northwest of Port Moresby on the Gulf of Papua; and over 450 miles (700km) of pipelines connecting the facilities. Participating interests include affiliates of ExxonMobil including Esso Highlands as operator (33.2%), Oil Search (29%), Independent Public Business (PNG government, 16.6%), Santos (13.5%), Nippon Oil Exploration (4.7%), Mineral Resources Development (PNG landowners, 2.8%) and Petromin PNG (0.2%). The investment for the initial phase of the project, excluding shipping costs, is estimated at $15bn. First LNG deliveries are scheduled to begin in 2014, following a construction period of about four years. Neil Duffin, president of ... read more >>
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Don’t you just love acronyms? I do, which is a good thing since I write the Smart Grid Dictionary, which is loaded with them. Acronyms are shorthand for common phrases, and there are certainly plenty of them in the Smart Grid business. Imagine my delight when I encountered a new acronym last week – BUGS. Everyone with a software background immediately thinks of coding errors, but in this case BUGS refers to Backup Generation Sources, and it is used in reference to Distributed Generation or DG for grid support. The Smart Grid Dictionary defines distributed generation as “Electric generation that feeds into the distribution grid, rather than the bulk transmission grid, whether on the utility side or customer side of the meter. It includes customer-owned microturbines, wind-powered generators, hydro units, and PV arrays. Customers who own generation resources usually want to reduce the amount of power purchased from the local utility or supply their own backup power needs, and this form of DG is sometimes known as on-site DG. Excess power may be sold back to the utility through net metering. ... read more >>
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U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said on Sunday that if Democrats employ the parliamentary procedure known as reconciliation to push the health care bill through, all major legislation currently being considered by the Senate would be threatened, including a climate bill that the Republican Graham has been working with Senate Democrats on passing. In terms of his relationship with the White House and other Democrats on issues like climate and immigration, Graham both praised and condemned President Obama. Graham said on ABC’s “This Week”: “I have been working with Lieberman and Kerry. We have come a long way on the climate and energy issue. This is one issue where the President has been great. He is saying all the right things to give us a chance to become energy independent and clean up the air and create jobs. But when it comes to health care, he has been tone deaf... read more >>
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I was on a pretty thoughtful panel discussion, “The Media, the Scientists and the Planet,” broadcast on TV Ontario. The other guests on The Agenda with Steve Paikin included Curtis Brainard, who critiques science and environment reporting for the Columbia Journalism Review, Walter Russell Mead, who is Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, and everybody’s favorite Canadian energy and technology columnist, the Toronto Star’s Tyler Hamilton. Here is the hour-long video:
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Here is our Nobel prize-winning physicist Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, in a San Jose Mercury News interview:
SJMN: Are you worried that the political will to enact a national policy or somehow tax or price carbon emissions is gone now? If you look at recent polls, the number of Americans who believe that global warming is real and man-made is declining. The political trends are not in your favor. Chu: Americans were believing because of sound bites, and now they’re disbelieving because of sound bites. One can honestly say that if we don’t do this, we will not be economically competitive. Ten and 20 years from now, the price of oil will likely be higher — this is not a stretch of the imagination. The debate for whether smoking causes lung cancer and emphysema was actually in the first decade among scientists, but they muddied the waters for 2½ more decades. Climate change, on a global scale, is a much bigger deal, and people are trying to muddy the waters, particularly people who think they might lose. Unfortunately, it’s easier to propagate fear than seeing a vision of prosperity. I prefer the phrase, “blow smoke in our face,” extending the tobacco ... read more >>
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Last month I had a phone interview with James Peret, the inventor of the VegaWatt. In the first part of the audio interview we talked about their ideal customers and industry landscape. Currently, the VegaWatt has a little to no competition in the restaurant industry or even in the micro waste to power industry. Any restaurant that makes more then 30 gallons of grease per month is a perfect customer and there are no other current or feasible more profitable ways for them to get rid of their waste. In this section James discusses why the VegaWatt is a billion dollar opportunity as there are more then 13,000 restaurants in the United States, then you can easily add all the ones in Canada, and Europe to that number and it becomes clear how the VegaWatt is going to be a seriously profitable invention. James is clearly a small, thoughtful, well spoken and amazing inventor. Not only will it be profitable, but it also has a huge environmental and social benefit. Have fun listening to our discussion! The $O Billion Dollar Opportunity In the discussion we talked about: -Why getting into every McDonalds is not the Vegawatt’s goal ... read more >>
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Southern Company and Turner Renewable Energy have acquired a 30MW solar photovoltaic (PV) power plant from First Solar, an Arizona-based manufacturer of thin film solar modules. The solar project is said to be the first to result from the partnership forged by Southern Company and Turner Renewable Energy in January and will supply power to approximately 9,000 homes. David Ratcliffe, chairman, president and CEO of Southern Company, said: "Expanding the role renewables play in our energy mix is a priority for Southern Company. Renewables, along with new nuclear, increased energy efficiency, cleaner coal technology and additional natural gas, all will be crucial to meeting this nation's growing energy demand." Ted Turner, founder of Turner Renewable Energy, said: "It is great that large-scale solar photovoltaic power generation is becoming a reality in the US. Southern Turner Renewable Energy is excited to develop and own this project and we look forward to generating clean renewable energy in New Mexico." The Southern Turner Cimarron I solar project is adjacent to Turner's Vermejo Park Ranch in northern New Mexico. First Solar is the contractor for both ... read more >>
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' Several weeks ago, Vermont Senate President Peter Shumlin called a vote of the Vermont Senate on whether or not to give the Public Service Commission permission to issue a certificate of public good for the continued operation of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station. One of the premises underlying the decision that the Senate made to refuse that permission was that there were other available sources of power that could replace the plant's output. Presumably, before making that kind of decision, the senators would have received extensive staff briefings that supported their conclusion. Presumably, the senators would take the time required to understand the issues and make the best possible decision for the people that they represent. We all know that our representatives cannot be experts on all topics that might come before them, but most of us have at least some degree of trust that the representatives will take the time to listen to their staff briefs so that they can make a reasonably accurate decision based on the knowable facts. The video above is a clear demonstration that Vermont Senator Peter Shumlin, at the very least, did not take the time to be ... read more >>
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 The profit potential of the global nuclear industry is closely tracked by several financial services
The growth of nuclear energy over the next two-and-half decades will vastly shift energy use from carbon-based to carbon-free uses. The key elements of this shift include significant change from fossil fuel sources for electricity generation to uranium for nuclear reactors. It follows there will be greater use of electricity in industrial processing and heating. Another aspect of the shift in energy use will be to use nuclear energy instead of natural gas for water desalinization. especially in arid countries or those with high population growth and parallel pollution problems. The transportation sector, which accounts for much of today's use of oil, will benefit with high speed electrified rail service for people and freight. The growth of global markets for electric cars will depend more on battery technologies than electricity supply. According to the World Nuclear Association, worldwide nuclear energy is expected to grow in substantially in 10 key countries by 2030. The World Nuclear Association outlook data ... read more >>
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