Energy BOT Squad’s Newest Member
March 14, 2011
Things are starting to heat up for the Energy BOT Squad. This week’s BOT is powered by Canada’s primary heating fuel: natural gas.
But GasBOT is no hothead (even if her pigtails are pretty bright) — natural gas is also a low-emission fuel source for electricity across the country. And, when it comes to natural gas-powered vehicles, she’s no slowpoke either. In fact, there are as many uses for natural gas across the country as there are places to find it.
Conventional? Sure: if you want to find conventional natural gas production you only have to go as far as Alberta, where Canada produces more than 75 per cent of its natural gas. But GasBOT’s also fuelled by unconventional sources like coal and shale, which can be found across the country. Together, all those natural gas resources keep Canada well supplied.
So whether she’s heating your house or burning rubber, GasBOT is a BOT to watch, which is why we’re going to spend the next week taking a look at natural gas across the country. So, GasBOT… activate!
Totally Renewable – and Renewed – by 2030?
February 10, 2011
In our recent post on the World Future Energy Summit, we discussed the need for policy change in order to achieve current climate change targets. Two scientists in the United States have taken that one step further. Mark Z. Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering, Stanford University and Mark A. Delucchi, research scientist, Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis; believe that all that is needed to achieve a totally carbon free, totally renewable, wind, water and solar (WWS) based energy system by 2030 is political will.
Well, maybe a bit more than that. We’ll also need:
- 490,000 tidal turbines, each with an installed capacity of one megawatt
- 5,350 geothermal plants, each with an installed capacity of 100 megawatts
- 270 additional hydroelectric plants, each with an installed capacity of 1,300 megawatts
- 3.8 million wind turbines, each with an installed capacity of five megawatts
- 720,000 wave powered turbines, each with an installed capacity of 0.75 megawatts
- 1.7 billion rooftop photovoltaic systems, each with an installed capacity of three kilowatts
- 49,000 solar focusing steam power plants, each with an installed capacity of 300 megawatts
- 40,000 photovoltaic power plants, each with an installed capacity of 300 megawatts
Basically, to achieve a totally renewable WWS energy system, we’ll have to totally renew the existing system. And that includes building a new, super-interconnected electricity transmission grid. It also involves scrapping all internal combustion engine vehicles and replacing them with electric or fuel cell vehicles.
And the cost estimate is only about $100 trillion.
The most fascinating aspect of this theory is that it might just be doable.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts that by 2030, world energy demand will be 16.9 terawatts (TW), or enough to power 47 60-watt light bulbs for every person on earth. But Jacobson and Delucchi point out that in a carbon-free world there would be no internal combustion engines, and internal combustion engines are far less efficient than electricity, so the actual requirement drops to 11.5 TW.
And if you think 3.8 million wind turbines is a lot, consider that auto manufacturers make 73 million cars per year. Also consider that much of the world’s electricity generation and transmission infrastructure is aging and will have to be replaced in the not too distant future anyway. And without all the transportation-induced air pollution, medical and environmental costs would decrease significantly.
As far as reliability of the system is concerned, a thoroughly interconnected grid will be able to re-route surplus electricity to wherever it is needed. Jacobson and Delucchi point out, perhaps a little simplistically, that if it’s raining in one place, it’s sunny someplace else, or if there’s no wind, it’s probably sunny. In other words, electricity will be generated somehow, somewhere.
The authors have determined that the only technical barrier might be the availability of rare-earth metals needed for batteries, solar films and fuel cells. But if we recycle old batteries and buildings, we should have ample supply of steel, concrete and things like neodymium and indium.
Which means the real barrier is political will, which ultimately means getting everyone onside. Most of us agree there’s a problem, but maybe it’s a little far fetched to try and achieve all this by 2030. Maybe it’s more realistic to try for 2050. Implement a more gradual shift, replacing old infrastructure as needed with new wind, water and solar generation. Maybe people will be a little more comfortable with that and a little more willing to put one of the 1.7 billion photovoltaic systems on their own roof.
Read the paper in the journal Energy Policy, Part 1 (600KB PDF) and Part 2 (680KB PDF)
Natural Gas Pricing
January 14, 2011
The bad news about the winter of 2011 is that it’s here.
The good news is that it may not cost as much to heat our homes as it has in previous winters. Environment Canada assures us temperatures will be slightly higher than normal, and the National Energy Board is saying that “for the second year in a row, Canadian consumers will likely pay relatively low prices for natural gas.”
But, winter weather is unpredictable and sure, a cold snap could cause a temporary increase in gas prices, but market fundamentals suggest temporary is the operative word.
So, why the low prices? The Canadian Gas Association points to sustained production with only moderate growth in demand. Add to that the increased impact of unconventional sources, especially shale gas in British Columbia and the United States, and the result is a North American natural gas market that is “well supplied,” so much so that gas storage levels are above the five-year average.
This causes downward pressure on natural gas prices. The wholesale gas price from January through September 2010 averaged $4.60 per MMBtu, about 34 per cent lower than the five-year average of $7.00 and this is expected to continue through the winter.
Enjoy it while you can. Depressed prices mean decreased drilling and, over time, a reduction in new supply. As well, prices for oil and coal are rising, and natural gas is seen as a lower-cost replacement for transportation fuel and thermal electricity generation. Short supply and increased demand may mean expensive winters in the future.
How smart is smart metering?
October 6, 2010
Smart metering is the centrepiece of a new wave of electricity transmission technologies: a way of monitoring energy use in real time that allows consumers to be more active in the way they use energy. Time-of-use rates, for example, make consumers pay more for electricity during high-use, “on-peak,” periods (such as the dinner hour), and less during periods where everyone (with the possible exception of panicked, deadline-conscious bloggers) is asleep. Ontario plans to install smart meters in every home and business in the province by the end of 2010.
It’s the perfect solution for reducing our total energy use, right? Not necessarily.
In a study published in the September edition of the Building Research and Information journal, researchers from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands found that while Danish smart meter users saw an initial reduction of an average of 7.8 per cent, many users’ electricity consumption eventually returned to previous levels in the longer term. Like shock campaigns designed to scare drivers away from risky behaviour, the effect only lasted as long as its novelty.
The study only included about 304 participants, a relatively small sample, but it provides some of the same cautions that other researchers have already found. The UK, for example, is planning on installing smart meters in 27 million homes and two million other sites over 10 years. But an article written by a British researcher, also published in the September issue of Building Research and Information, found that usage levels won’t drop unless governments are also “[providing] a determined focus on overall demand reduction (rather than on peak electricity demand reduction) … designing customer interfaces for ease of understanding, and … guiding occupants towards appropriate action.”
As both studies note, different meters provide varying levels of information to the user, which means that better technology offers room for improvement in any smart metering campaign. But no matter how smart our metering gets, the “smartest” technology that we have when it comes to energy use will continue to be energy users themselves.
Don’t just flush power down the drain
October 4, 2010
Canada gets a lot of power from its water. In fact, 23.3 per cent of the country’s water is generated by hydro power. But while hydroelectricity is emission-free, it’s not necessarily consequence-free — reservoirs require flooding large areas, the turbines can affect fish and the land around the development necessarily has to be changed to accommodate large-scale construction equipment.
It’s because of these environmental consequences that large-scale hydro development has all but stopped in North America. Instead, most recent hydro developments are so-called micro hydro projects, like the kind that Ontario’s microFIT program encourages. Like tidal power technology that places turbines in the water, micro hydro developments like in-stream turbines take advantage of the existing movement of the water.
One particularly inventive variety of this kind of micro hydro development comes from the UK, where Tom Broadbent (pictured above), a UK inventor has found a way to harness the power of falling waste water to generate electricity. Like an in-stream hydro development, a turbine captures the kinetic energy of water as it courses down an apartment complex’s main drainage pipe. The resulting energy savings, Broadbent boasts, could be up to $1,000 a year for a seven-story apartment building.
Of course, the size of the apartment building is an essential part of generating this energy — the longer the water has to fall, the more kinetic energy it builds. But it’s still an interesting approach to finding power in the water we use every day anyway. And since Canada already gets so much of its power from water anyway, it seems like a waste not to look to our pipes too.
Big Brother is watching… your energy efficiency
August 27, 2010
There are plenty of ways to check your energy efficiency. In Ontario, for example, you can book a Home Energy Audit, saving up to $150 on the audit itself. The federal ecoENERGY program used to offer pre-retrofit evaluations that provided rebates on energy-efficient appliances, but the ecoENERGY Retrofit program was cancelled effective March 31, 2010. And, audits or no, you can always buy more efficient appliances and ensure that drafts and other gaps in your home’s insulation are taken care of.
Still if home audits are too costly, and you don’t like the idea of someone poking around your home, perhaps you’d be more interested in a plane taking infrared photos of your house. Live like you’re in 1984… in 2010!
All right, it’s not really as frightening as George Orwell’s dystopic vision of the future, but a Belgian company has successfully used thermal maps taken by a plane flying over Antwerp to measure the heat loss from houses’ roofs. It’s an unobtrusive way of measuring the amount of energy being lost by a house, and given our existing comfort with public satellite data like the kind found on Google Maps, it’s not hard to imagine that we might eventually be able to access this kind of image from the comfort of our computer. At the same time, it begs the question of just how public we want our energy consumption habits to be.
It might not be double plus good, but it’s certainly not bad either.
M-m-m biomass
August 26, 2010
We don’t like generating biofuel from our food, but what about a worker whose food is our waste? That’s exactly what Bristol Robotics Lab in the UK has been doing with a sewage-scavenging robot that metabolizes waste in its artificial gut.
The robot, the Ecobot III, can survive by itself for up to seven days by consuming organic material for its microbial fuel cells (MFCs), bio-electrochemical devices that use bacteria to break down food and generate power. Since, unlike a human digestive system, this organic material could be anything, including sewage (the sewage that the Ecobot III is being fed has already been partially processed). When the waste needs to be expelled, it’s sent out of a gravity-fed peristaltic pump that squeezes unwanted matter out of a tube. That way, the robot’s processing system doesn’t become clogged by unused fuel.
It’s a little gross, but hey: Isn’t the future worth it?
But a robot that eats waste like animals eat food isn’t the only option for autonomous robots powered by biomass. As the New Scientist article linked above mentions, the U.S. military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is developing a similar robot powered by an internal combustion engine. Rather than digesting biomass, these robots would take in organic matter and burn it. Though, in an age where we’re increasingly concerned about greenhouse gases, and with a robot that could consume our waste, it seems odd to propose a new model that’s certainly going to release even more emissions.
Either way, the idea of tiny robots scurrying around and taking care of our waste, without so much as a finger lifted by their owners, is definitely appealing. A trash-removing robot powered by the very trash it removes? My apartment could probably use two.
Planting the Seeds of Opportunity
July 26, 2010
Image: Cover page for The Enchanted Drill Bit written, illustrated and published by grade three and four students at Tilley School with support from Enerplus. Cover illustration by Delaney Tateson, grade four.
Elementary school teacher Janice Jensen and her students at Tilley School in Tilley, Alberta have taken environmental sustainability to a new level since the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers’ (CAPP) Energy in Action program visited their community three years ago.
On Tilley’s Energy in Action day in May 2007, students and oil and gas industry volunteers built indoor greenhouses that they use to grow food and flowers to raise money for the local food bank. The event also sparked a long lasting relationship between the school and companies that operate in the area.
Jensen saw the Energy in Action program as a window of opportunity. “A strong relationship with Enerplus and BP Canada was built that day and it has continued to this day,” she said. Since Energy in Action, Janice has worked closely on a variety of projects with BJ Arnold, Stakeholder Relations Advisor, and Lorne Schmidt, District Foreman, both of Enerplus. “It wasn’t just a one day event for them, they have stayed actively involved. The students get very excited when Lorne and BJ come to visit.”
Lorne and BJ have judged the school energy fair, spoke to the grade 3 and 4 class every year about oil and gas in the Tilley region, and they have continued to support the school’s environmental projects supplying donations for rechargeable batteries, greenhouses and compost bins.
Most recently, with advice from CAPP’s Energy in Action program, Janice and her students took advantage of BP Canada’s A+ for Energy grant and got more support from Enerplus to write, illustrate, and publish “The Enchanted Drill Bit,” a children’s book about the oil and gas industry and its products. The school will continue to seek industry support for environmental initiatives such as installing low-flow faucets and toilets in the washrooms so teachers, parents and students can learn more about the decisions everyone can make to reduce water and electricity use.
“These students are educators and mentors and it’s a privilege to work with a school that has such a passion for learning,” said Enerplus’ Arnold. “Enerplus is looking forward to continuing its relationship with the entire Tilley community for many years to come.”
Since 2004, 52 companies and more than 1,629 company volunteers have participated in Energy in Action events in 49 communities across Canada. Together they have planted nearly 4,700 trees and shrubs, and taught close to 5,000 students about energy resources and the benefits of careful resource development.
Burning Food And Fuel
July 6, 2010
Two hungry, hungry sources are responsible for most of the world’s environmental impacts: our mouths and our gas tanks.
According to a report prepared for the “International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management,” convened under the United Nations Environment Programme , food and fuel consumption are taking considerable tolls on the environment that include reducing freshwater supplies, destroying ecosystems and intensifying disease and death rates. It’s not a rosy picture, and one of the report’s more interesting recommendations isn’t any more pleasant for meat eaters: switching to vegetable-based foods over animal-based proteins. (Of course, as far as carbon intensity, not all plants are created equal either).
In Canada, agriculture contributed 8.5 per cent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2008, but energy provided the lion’s share, with 81 per cent. Changing the way we use energy is at the heart of everything we write here at Flow, so there are clear indications across the board that Canadians and Canadian industry are willing to take steps to improve their energy use. From energy efficiency to renewable energy projects, provincial energy strategies show that the entire country recognizes the importance of our energy.
And the agricultural industry has taken notice of its environmental footprint as well. In addition to projects like farm-based methane capture that make better use of existing emissions, techniques like no-till farming are designed to reduce the volume of total emissions by reducing the disturbance of soil. And even more basic methods, like using straw residue to keep nitrogen from escaping into groundwater, are aimed at reducing farming’s environmental impact.
Whether or not the report’s recommendations are followed to the letter, the way the world uses energy and grows its food will certainly change. But it’s also an uphill battle — there aren’t many things we need more than fuel and food.
Solar for those who can’t
April 14, 2010
You like the idea of a solar photovoltaic array providing electricity for your home. But there’s a problem. Your house is on a lot with many tall, stately conifers that completely shade your roof all year long. Cutting a couple down would be counter productive to your green aspirations.
Or maybe you live in an apartment where there is no place to install solar panels.
Or you have a lovely sun-lit townhouse with a south-facing roof but the condo board says “No solar panels. They ruin the aesthetics of our community.”
But don’t despair. You can participate in a community solar farm similar to ones in Falmouth, Massachusetts, Sacramento, California; St. George, Utah.
The concept is simple. In Falmouth, the solar farm is owned by a co-op which sells the solar-generated electricity directly to the local distribution company. Co-op members take equity positions in the co-op, and revenue from electricity sales, tax credits and incentive program funding is distributed to the members proportional to their equity stake.
In Sacramento and St. George the program is run by the local utility and the electricity goes directly to the grid. Participants in Sacramento pay a customized monthly fee based on historic electricity use and the portion of the system the participant chooses to “own”. Ownership options are 1.0, 1.5, or 2.0 kilowatts installed capacity. The power generated by a participant’s portion shows up as a credit on her/his electricity bill.
In St. George, the cost to participate is $3,000 per half unit (0.5 kilowatts installed capacity) or $6,000 per full unit (one kilowatt installed capacity) up to a maximum of four units. Again, participants are credited on their monthly bills for the electricity generated by their units.
The solar arrays in a community solar farm are not connected directly to the participants’ homes, but unlike other solar electricity programs, the participants “own” part of the array, either through up front payments, such as in Falmouth and St. George, or through monthly fees, such as in Sacramento.
Participants, and others, still benefit from the solar power generated by the farms because the electricity delivered to the grid reduces the need for electricity from coal or natural gas fired generation.
So, even if you live in the dark, solar can be a part of your household electricity profile.
