Energy Person of the Year

The Energy Council of Canada has recognized Steve Snyder, President and CEO of TransAlta as its winner of this year’s ‘Energy Person of the Year’ award. The gala event, which took place in Calgary, was attended by leaders of the oil, natural gas and electricity industry as well as government leaders including the Honourable Ed Stelmach, Premier of Alberta, Honourable Ron Leipert, Alberta Minister of Energy and Serge Dupont, deputy minister of Natural Resources Canada.

Steve talked about the future of Canada’s energy sector in his acceptance speech. Now, TransAlta is not only a leader in the electricity sector, but also Canada’s largest developer of wind power. By the end of this year the company will operate (and own) 18 commercial wind farms – with more than 1,000 MW of installed capacity which is about 30 per cent of Canada’s total installed capacity.

Renewable Power That’s Out of This World

You’ve heard of solar power, and you’ve heard of wind power, but what about solar wind power? It’s not just a convenient mash-up of two of the most familiar sources of renewable energy: it’s a hypothetical technology with mile-high potential for power generation.

Solar winds are streams of charged particles that are ejected from the upper atmosphere of the sun, carrying 6.7 billion tons of mass away every hour. Propelling this matter through space, solar winds can move at anywhere between 400 and 750 kilometres per hour. Consider that modern wind turbines turn with wind speeds between 13 and 90 kilometres, and you have some sense of the enormous amount of energy available.

Just how much energy could a satellite harnessing solar winds generate? As much as 100 billion times as much power as the Earth currently uses.

Now, a pair of researchers from Washington State University has suggested that such a so-called a Dyson-Harrop satellite is possible. As Popular Science explains: A 0.4-inch-wide copper wire pointed at the sun, and attached to a solar sail (the wire — which can range in length from 980 feet to more than half a mile) would generate a magnetic field that would capture electrons from the solar wind. The particles would be funneled into a spherical receiver, which produces a current.

The main issue of a solar-powered satellite capable of returning solar wind power to the Earth isn’t a simple one though. Somehow, the satellite would have to be capable of beaming all that power back to the Earth, which would require an intense beam of energy that’s currently beyond our technical ability. If scientists were able to harness all this power, though, it could very well be the last energy solution that the planet requires.

That, or the greatest death ray ever designed by science. Hopefully just the power thing, though.

Via Popular Science

Off-grid Power Play

It’s estimated that over two billion people around the world don’t have access to dependable electric power. Fenix International is building a business to help solve that problem. Powerful, don’t you think?

“People. Prosperity. Planet.” That’s the business model CEO Mike Lin is using to solve the seemly insurmountable problem of worldwide electricity demand. The first product out of the gates for the company is ReadySet, a 12-volt, lead-acid battery pack with basic connectors (USB and cigarette lighters) for charging devices. The battery will last up to three years because the electronics make sure that ReadySet cannot be 100 per cent discharged – a common killer of batteries.

The ReadySet not only boosts a battery’s lifespan, but can be charged by a number of different devices, including a bike-mounted generator, a solar panel and the electricity grid itself. Lin and his team have targeted customers in Africa who currently use car batteries to produce and sell off-grid power – entrepreneurs in their own right. But at $150 for the battery with one of its power generation gadgets, the buy-in price might be a little high. Lin is also looking to partner with energy providers and major telecom service providers to co-market the ReadySet.

Will ReadySet be a go? The pilot project is complete and commercial roll out is planned for this fall. But moving innovation to market is often the bigger hurdle.

Ontario’s energy, in the long term

It’s easy to use energy, but it’s a lot harder to manage energy use in the long term. That’s why Ontario is soliciting feedback from consumers on its upcoming “Long-Term Energy Plan,” asking Ontarians to shape the way that they use their energy for the next 20 years.

Across the country, provincial and territorial governments have released documents that outline strategies designed to improve consumers’ efficiency and reduce our emissions. They all share an increased emphasis on renewable power sources, energy efficiency measures and long-term planning.

In particular, the efficiency and emissions of our energy systems have a lot to do with the mix of sources we use. For example, in 2009, Canada’s electricity production broke down into: hydro (61.7 per cent), fossil fuels (21.3 per cent), nuclear (14.7 per cent) and wind (0.3 per cent), with a small amount solar generation. An energy source has huge consequences for cost and emissions, and with energy use continuing to increase along with our concern for the environment it’s no wonder that all energy strategies are concerned with a province’s energy mix.

At the moment, Ontario is one of the remaining provinces without an overarching strategy document. Its previous plan, the Integrated Power System Plan (IPSP), was presented to the Ontario Energy Board in 2007, but was never formally approved. The province doesn’t want for energy-related initiatives — its Green Energy Act has produced a variety of programs, such as the Feed-In Tariff (FIT) program — but it lacks a consolidated document that outlines the long-term energy mix. Now, the IPSP has become the Long-Term Energy Plan, and that plan is open to public input.

On the Ontario Ministry of Energy’s front page, participants can answer 10 open-ended questions about energy, like “How should increased costs to Ontarians be weighed against other goals in power system planning?” and “How do you think the electricity demands of families and businesses will change over the next 20 years in Ontario?” Together, these answers will guide the plan that will ultimately be submitted to the Ontario Energy Board for review in 2011, likely after the provincial election in October.

It’s a safe bet that the province will still continue to use nuclear power, which currently accounts for 50 per cent of their electricity needs, and that non-hydro renewables will continue to play a relatively small part in the total mix. In the long term, though, it’s hard to predict exactly how the energy mix will change, considering the province is already rolling out millions of smart meters and other next-generation energy technologies. But for now, anyway, the consumers who use energy are going to have to be the ones suggesting how to manage it.

Don’t just flush power down the drain

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.

Via Popular Science

Solar for those who can’t

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.

Molten salt

You know the expression, “ask ten people the same question, and get ten answers?” Here’s an exception: Ask a thousand people involved with solar energy this question, and you’ll get the same answer every single time.

Namely: “what’s the single biggest drawback to solar power?” That answer? Storage.

It’s definitely been solar’s Achilles heel, if you will. Solar-generated electricity is cheap, renewable, works on small and large scales, and the infrastructure is relatively cheap. But what do you do when it’s cloudy?

It goes without saying that electricity has to be available on demand. Previously, solar cells charged batteries (for the most part). That’s a decent solution, but batteries are expensive, bulky, and often inefficient.

A U.S. firm may just have invented the perfect solution, and it’s so high-tech you have to read the following sentence a few times to comprehend the complexity. Salt. Yes, you read that right. The world’s most common condiment may just be the future of electricity.

Okay, it’s more complicated than that – but not a whole lot more. Hamilton Sundstrand, a US aerospace company, couldn’t help but notice that when you heat salt to over 1,000 degrees, it melts and retains most of its heat energy.

The molten salt (actually a mixture of sodium and potassium nitrate) is stored in a tank until dispatched into a steam generator. The steam drives a turbine, which generates electricity. The salt retains 99 per cent of its heat per 24 hours, which is far better than most materials.

Sometimes progress is funny: a company devoted to outer space looks at a clean energy source from the skies, and improves it with…salt from the earth.

The case for a world energy market

Canada’s federal government has stated clearly that developing a Canada/U.S. partnership on energy and the environment is a priority. This idea finds support across the spectrum of opinion in Canada, creating common ground between environmental and energy interests. But what’s in it for the new U.S. administration?

Assuring the U.S. of our reliability as a supplier of energy is good. But this isn’t new and could easily be construed as an attempt by Canada to lock in its market access for natural gas, oil, electricity, and uranium – commodities for which we are already the number one supplier to the U.S. Signalling our willingness to partner on environmental management is also positive, but from a U.S. perspective it adds complexity to an extremely difficult domestic challenge.

Rather than focussing on our bilateral relationship, Canada’s strongest leverage on U.S. policy may in fact come from contributing to a broader international agenda where Canada and U.S. interests converge. Prime Minister Mulroney succeeded well with Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush by following such a course. More recently, our military mission in Afghanistan has gained us far more credit in Washington than any other Canadian initiative in the past decade.

Energy creates such multilateral opportunities. Canada can partner with the U.S. in promoting a stable world energy trade, investment and carbon management system that builds on energy markets rather than getting in their way.

The mantra in the U.S. is energy independence. It is a powerful sound byte yet impossible to achieve. North America will be dependent on imported oil as far into the future as we can see. Although the continent is virtually self-sufficient in natural gas, we also have access to world gas markets through liquefied natural gas (LNG) re-gasification capacity equivalent to over 15% of our domestic use. Even ethanol might be better sourced in places like Brazil if the objective were to find the most economic and environmentally preferable supplies. With our effectively functioning markets and flexible pipeline and storage systems, Canada and the U.S. can fulfil their energy needs strategically from either domestic sources or world markets. And of course we will be increasingly tied into a world carbon management system.

Clearly, Canada and the U.S. have a substantial and growing interest in a well-functioning world energy market. There is potential for cooperation in several areas, including energy markets, the yet-to-be defined carbon market, investment rules, northern development and technology. Canada has a great deal to contribute to the conversation if we decide to step up.

Canada has earned its place at this table. We have learned the hard lessons of the National Energy Program – how bad policy can wreak havoc on energy markets and sow interregional discord. We went through the tough political fight over energy in the free trade agreement. Many voices claimed in 1988 that the FTA energy chapter was a sellout of our sovereignty and our energy security. Twenty years on we have enjoyed unprecedented wealth creation and energy stability for producers and customers based on open markets complemented by North American trade and investment rules. We are a free market champion with the scars to prove it.

Meanwhile much of the world has lost faith in markets. The reaction to the recent financial meltdown (markets don’t work, let’s regulate) is piled on top of a longer trend away from open energy markets in non-OECD countries. Price management, state control of investment and energy assets and geopolitical market manipulation have become prevalent. Soon we may add ill-conceived carbon management systems to this witch’s brew.

The recurring natural gas price dispute between Russia and Ukraine, and its impact on European energy security, is a window on a world without solid trade and investment agreements. At a time when we can least afford such instability, the threat of this contagion of national self-interest is clear.

The United States and Canada have a fundamental interest in building a stable world energy market, not Fortress North America. President Obama’s visit to Canada is an ideal opportunity to begin forging an integrated approach that shapes international energy trade and investment rules, and develops mechanisms for cooperation on energy and carbon management that are necessary for those markets to work.

Pierre Alvarez, Chair, Canadian Centre for Energy Information,
Michael Cleland, President & CEO, Canadian Gas Association
Roger Gibbins, President, Canada West Foundation.

This is the first commentary in a three part series on national energy security. The series is based on a paper prepared for the recent North Pacific Energy Security Conference.

 

Recently, the Globe and Mail published an article by Canadian Centre for Energy Information Chair, Pierre Alvarez. The piece is based on a White Paper Mr. Alvarez wrote with Michael Cleland, President of the Canadian Gas Association and Roger Gibbins, President of Canada West Foundation. Another article by the same authors was published in the Edmonton Journal on the day President Obama visited Canada.

Energy in Canada #1

A STRONG PARTNERSHIP
Canada is the largest, safest and most secure supplier of energy to the United States. From supplying natural gas to developing fuel cell technology, Canada is vital to ensuring North America’s energy security.  Read More

THE HYDROGEN HIGHWAY AND BEYOND
Canadian researchers are world leaders in hydrogen and fuel cell technologies. This innovation is being shared with our southern neighbour through various government and private partnerships.  Read More

CAPTURING CARBON TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE
Through the Plains CO2 Reduction Partnership, 80 U.S. and Canadian stakeholders are working together to make carbon dioxide capture and storage a viable option for combating climate change.  Read More  In 2008 the Centre for Energy in partnership with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars hosted the ninth cross-border forum on energy issues. Seventy-five participants, including academics, policy makers and industry representatives assessed the importance of carbon capture and storage to Canada and the United States in developing resources and addressing climate change. The Centre for Energy sat down with the seven panelists who led the discussion at the forum. The interviews give listeners a technical, environmental and social perspective on carbon capture and storage. Listen In

POWERING A NATION
In 2007, Canada exported over $3.1 billion in electricity to the United States. An increasing portion of this electrical energy is being sourced from renewable sources, such as hydropower and wind power. Read More

FROM FOOD TO FUEL
Producers on both sides of the border are exploring the many sources of and uses for bioenergy. In 2008, Canada had 16 ethanol plants and four biodiesel plants operating or under construction, with a total capacity of 1.9 billion litres per year. Read More

Cross Border Relations: U.S. and Canada – Energy Siblings?

Did you hear?  There’s a new President of the United States.

Lost in the initial – and furious – cycle of analysis of Barack Obama’s election was his impact on Canada-U.S. relations.  Early indications are that Obama’s presidency may mark a fundamental shift in how the U.S. deals and, particularly, trades with their northern neighbour.  Nowhere is this relationship more crucial than energy.

It’s impossible to understate the importance of the relationship to both countries.  Few nations are as inextricably linked and interdependent as are the “brothers from a common mother.”  Canada is – by far – the largest supplier of oil, natural gas, uranium and electricity to the United States.

A full three-quarters of everything Canada exports goes to the U.S. Canada has always sold itself to the U.S. as a safe energy investment – no coups, no civil wars, no transoceanic shipping.  A “Made in the USA” green shift cannot help but mean less energy shipped south – and fewer dollars coming back.

Just how much energy does Canada send south?  A lot.  In 2007, $ 41.6 billion worth of crude oil was transported to the U.S., along with $ 31.4 billion worth of natural gas, and $ 3.1 billion worth of electricity.  In 2006, Canada exported more than $91 billion in energy to the world, mostly the U.S.  Energy exports aren’t just important, but a pillar of the Canadian economy.

Canada Energy Sources to U.S.: As energy system

In many respects, Canada and the U.S. form a single energy market.  What makes Canada and the U.S. so energy-interconnected?  In a word, geography.

The vast majority of Canada’s population, and thus its energy infrastructure, is spread out on a relatively thin line along the U.S. northern border.  In many respects, it makes much more sense to speak of a series of regional transnational energy grids than two countries.  With a few exceptions, notably Newfoundland, Canadian provinces export far more energy to nearby U.S. states than to other provinces.

Take electricity.  Canada and the U.S. share an integrated electricity grid and supply almost all of each other’s electricity imports. Canada is a major supplier of electricity to New England, New York, the Upper Midwest, the Pacific Northwest and California, the majority of it clean hydroelectricity.

The two countries are becoming more interconnected, not less.  The aptly-named Montana Alberta Tie Ltd. is planning to construct transmission lines that will connect the electricity markets of Alberta and Montana.  This is notable as the first-ever merchant power transmission line between the two jurisdictions.

The $3.1 billion in electricity Canada exports to south is increasingly clean. Canada’s federal government is committed to deriving 90 per cent of Canada’s electricity from non-emitting sources by 2020.  Thus, the shared North American electricity grid will trend greenwards, to coin a phrase, regardless of U.S. policy.

Both countries are investing time and resources into wind power – already the  fastest-growing renewable energy source in the world.

Recently, Canada exceeded 2,000 megawatts of installed wind energy capacity.  Partially in response, the U.S. Department of Energy reported that wind could provide 20 per cent of the U.S.’s electricity by 2030.

Equally significant is hydropower. Using 90 per cent of hydropower, British Columbia provided $7.7 million worth of electricity to Idaho in 2007. New England, New York, the Upper Midwest, the Pacific Northwest and California, are also continuing to proactively manage their air emissions by receiving a large portion of electricity, specifically hydropower, from Canada.

Natural gas is no different.  The two countries rank first and second in worldwide natural gas production, and Canada supplies the U.S. with 82 per cent of its natural gas imports. The American appetite for natural gas, which burns much cleaner than conventional oil, is on the rise.  The only thing holding back increased trade is infrastructure, especially in the east.  Canada is developing Arctic pipelines and LNG terminals to provide more, as most Canadian natural gas exports enter the U.S. through pipelines in Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota.

Perhaps most encouragingly, the two countries also cooperate extensively in research and development.  Canadian companies and researchers work closely with American counterparts to develop the next generation of energy sources, such as hydrogen, solar and bioenergy, and on large-scale projects such as CO2 storage.

Two countries so inextricably linked in energy policy, production, trade, and use, are mutually dependent, for better or worse.  While presidential policies – or prime ministerial policies, for that matter – can have a significant economic impact, in the long run, the North American energy market isn’t going anywhere.

Just like the old saying goes, you can’t choose your family.  Both Canada and the U.S. are lucky to have each other as siblings.

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