One low carbon power source is off the table

After the tsunami hit the Fukushima nuclear power plants - there are a total of 10 reactors at two sites producing a peak of 9096 MW per hour - nuclear power worldwide has been dealt a serious blow.

Global warming has offered a new life to nuclear power globally because once a reactor is up and running there are very few CO2 emissions.    In general the environmental movement has not jumped on the nuclear band wagon, but given that the Kyoto protocol calls for a drop in CO2 emissions in developed countries and nukes achieve that, many countries have ramped up plans for new nuclear power plants

Since the late 1980s the rate of new nuclear power reactors globally has remained steady at about 420.   Basically the near disaster at Three Mile Island in 1979 and the actual melt down at Chernobyl in 1986 ended the expansion of nuclear power.  It has only been with the rise in concern about global warming that the expansion of nuclear power has come back.   There are now numerous plans around the world to build large numbers of new reactors.  2008, 2009 and 2010 saw the start of 10, 12, and 15 new reactors.  At teh end of 2010 there were 441 nuclear power plants in operation and 63 under construction.

And then there was a tsunami.

On its own, the Fukushima nuclear disaster would be worldwide news, but it is only one part of the earthquake-tsunami.   It is not only the Fukushima plants, but the Onagawa and Tokai plants that had problems as well.   It also has highlighted the fact that in 2007 the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant suffered some damage in a small earthquake. The same happened in 2008 at the Kurihara Nuclear Power Plant.

The idea that nuclear power is safe is not nearly as certain as people thought a couple of weeks ago.

The problems in 2007 and 2008 in Japan highlight the relative danger of nuclear power plants and earthquakes and this does not take very large earthquakes.  The potential of a major nuclear disaster in the event of a major earthquake seems to be almost certain.

Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California

Within the region of the Cascadia subduction zone, there is one nuclear power plant, the Columbia Generating Station in Richland Washington.  There was a second one, the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant in Oregon, which closed in 1992 after only 16 years of operation.  Of bigger concern is the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California.   It may survive an earthquake, but what about a tsunami?

Diablo Canyon was designed and built before there was a lot of thinking of megathrust earthquakes of tsunamis.

Nuclear power is not likely to be dead, but it has been hit with a serious blow and is unlikely to recover anytime soon if there is a complete meltdown of the Fukushima power plant.

Green power projects, now what?

There is a "perfect storm" brewing with respect to green power production in BC.

• BC Hydro is once again in full control of the transmission grid
• BC Hydro has started down the Site C project path and has become blinkered to all other power sources
• The BC Hydro corporate culture is once again strongly for large projects and against small private projects
• The NDP has made it clear that it is not open to the idea of more private power
• The recent cabinet shuffle is going to mean months of uncertainty about who can make what decisions and as we get closer May 2013 the time between the permission to go ahead and the next government coming to power is too short to get into the ground and underway.

These five factors could see a dramatic slowing in more green power coming online in BC.   We will see an ongoing slowing in the green power business for the next four to five years.   What will push a resurgence in the business in the future is a growing demand in the Western Interconnect for carbon neutral electrical power.

Within five years there will be more demand to see coal fired power plants shut down and ideally gas fired ones as well.    At the same time demand will be rising in this region of the grid.   The ability of wind, geothermal, solar and wave to provide any significant portion of the power within the next decade is minimal.   Nuclear is going to become very popular and there may even be some projects started, but the lead time for nuke is very long.   The lead time for a large scale hydro project like Site C also takes years till it is online.  There will be a large demand for green power that can quickly come online and only one affordable source, run of the river power.

BC has a huge potential for run of the river power and no matter what happens in the next five years, the demand for this power will be there in 2015 even more so than now.   It is unfortunate that the industry is likely to go through a number of years of troubles before the political climate changes.

Paint your roof white and save the world!

This is an interesting story from the CBC today

All new roofs would be white under a Montreal borough's proposed bylaw aimed at taking advantage of a white roof's cooling effects.

Mayor François Croteau of Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie wants to make white roofs mandatory on new buildings. Roofs requiring repairs would have to be painted white as well.

Croteau's idea is supported by a Concordia University engineering professor, who says all the world's roofs should be changed to cooling colours.

"Ten metres squared of white roof is equivalent, in cooling the globe, the equivalent to one tonne of [carbon dioxide]," Prof. Hashem Akbari says.

Akbari is trying to persuade 100 of the world's largest cities to switch to light-coloured roofs. Changing all the roofs in the world would be equal to getting rid of all the world's cars for 20 years, he says.

If Croteau gets his way, many of his borough's roofs will be white within about 15 years.

The bylaw would not apply to buildings with peaked roofs, which many residential houses have.

Croteau said making the switch to white roofs would be more expensive in the short term. But, he said, the cost would be offset eventually because white roofs are more durable.

Councillors in Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie will vote on the proposal in October.

In looking for this story I found some of the research that backs up the reasoning, I had no idea of the impact that changing the colour of the roof could have.   If there were a wholesale transition to white roofs, there would be a 33% reduction in the urban heat island effect.

Sarah Thomson, candidate for mayor of Toronto is backing this idea as well, though she is running a distant third of fourth.

You can even calculate the savings from moving to a light coloured roof from a dark one.

I like the idea of showing people that is saves money and not any sort of forced mandate.

The Economics of Site C

I am looking into the economics of Site C and I am interested in anything that anyone can point me in the direction of to make some real estimates of the cost of construction, operation and such.

Things such as:
Cost of the dam
Cost of the transmission lines
Cost of the rebuild of highway #29
Cost of the consultation process
Cost of replacing the agricultural lands
Cost of mitigation of erosion of the high river side banks by the resevoir
Cost of accommodating First Nation rights.

Please send me anything you might know of.

bern99@ymail.com

A Video showing Site C Reservoir

Over the next few weeks I am going to take a closer look at the Site C dam project and consider what impacts it may have.  

This is a video by the Treaty 8 Tribal Association showing the proposed reservoir for  the Site C project.  The reservoir will stretch from Fort St John to Hudson's Hope.  

One expense that comes to mind after watching the video is the cost of having to move Highway #29.   It looks like 30-40 km of the highway would have to be rebuilt and four major bridges.   My quick estimate is that about 100 acres of land that will need to acquired for the road right of way.

So what will cost to rebuild this highway?   My quick estimate is between $500,000,000 and $1,000,000,000.   The cost is mainly due to the bridges that will need to be built.   Is this cost factored into the cost of the dam?

Interesting Program to allow low income homes become more energy efficient

I found this on Craigslist today and thought it might be of interest to people:

The Government Wants to Help You Renovate!

The Energy Conservation Assistance Program (ECAP) provides BC Hydro residential account holders on limited budgets with a home energy evaluation, the installation of energy saving products, and personalized energy efficiency advice. All of this is free of change to the participant.

Every home is different. Your home evaluator will determine which energy efficiency upgrades your home is eligible for. The installation of some products may require multiple visits.

Eligibility

To qualify for this program you must be a BC Hydro residential customer with moderate to high electricity consumption (more than 8,000 kWh/yr, which is approximately an electricity bill exceeding $500 per year) living in the Lower Mainland, on Vancouver Island, or the Southern Interior.

Applicants must provide proof of income for every member of the household 18 years or older by providing a Notice of Assessment from the Canada Revenue Agency. Your combined household income must be below the Low-Income Cut-Off (LICO) as published by Statistics Canada. Low-income cutoffs vary by where you live (population) and by the number of people in your household.

You can view the LICO table on the Energy Conservation Assistance Program application form. This can be found on www.citygreen.ca/bc-hydro-energy-conservation-assistance-program-ecap

Contact Information

Glenys Verhulst ecoenergy@citygreen.ca (250) 381 9995 x11

Eligibility: If you do not qualify for the ECAP program, you can order an Energy Saving Kit, sign up for a home energy assessment for LiveSmart BC grants, or check out the Affordable Warmth incentive database for other programs to help you make your home more energy efficient.

Oil and Gas coming to the Yukon?

Seems there is a push to start the development of some natural gas resources in Yukon.   A company called Northern Cross is proposing development of the resource for local use by mines in Yukon.

The development of this resource will bring more interest in oil and gas into the region and may lead to the construction of a pipeline from north eastern BC to Yukon.  It also is another further step down the road to the development of the oil and gas resources in the Mackenzie Delta and eventually the tar sands on Melville Island.

Until there is a lot more green electrical power and oil is no longer economically viable, the development of oil and gas resources will move further and further out there.  BC could help by extending the grid to Yukon.

Northern Cross touts solution to Yukon’s energy pinch

Wednesday June 16, 2010  by John Thompson

As far as fossil fuels go, it’s cheap, clean and plentiful.

If Northern Cross has its way, the stuff will help power Yukon’s next generation of mines. It may even one day help propel the trucking fleet that carries goods up the Alaska Highway.

It’s natural gas. There’s an estimated 5 trillion cubic feet of it beneath Eagle Plain, and Northern Cross, a small, privately-held Calgary company, wants to pump it to the surface, chill it to minus 160 degrees Celsius so it condenses to liquid, and truck it to energy-hungry mines within the territory.

“There’s a large need for additional energy, especially with a growing mining industry, and we’d love to service that industry with clean-burning natural gas, if we can,” said president Brian Avery.

On Friday the territory announced that Northern Cross won the right to explore 49,000 acres of property in Eagle Plain, just shy of the Arctic Circle, after pledging to conduct $615,100 in exploration work over the next decade. Oil and gas dispositions are given to whichever company pledges to commit the most work.

The new disposition completes a patchwork of properties already claimed by Northern Cross. All in, the company has rights to explore nearly 1.3 million acres of Eagle Plain Basin. It has pledged to conduct a total of $21 million in work.

Next step: before exploration begins, the company needs to raise between $50 million and $100 million.

“Financial markets have been a little shaky lately, to say the least, so we don’t have the wherewithal to do exploration yet, but we’re hoping that will come together in the next few months,” said Avery.

If financing falls into place, Northern Cross plans to sink a dozen new wells, starting early next year, and to explore four existing wells that were drilled in the 1960s and 1970s.

The operation would employ approximately 100 workers at any given time, said Avery.

The company’s first three drilling licences have already cleared Yukon’s regulatory hurdles. This work would all be done immediately adjacent to the Dempster Highway.

Northern Cross already has its drilling rig in place at the old Camp 204. Next, it plans to move a 46-person camp up from Fort Nelson.

When Northern Cross formed in 1994, its focus was on pumping oil from Eagle Plain to sell to Yukon customers. In 1998, after spending $2.5 million, the company produced a few hundred barrels of crude, which was shipped to Whitehorse and fed to Yukon Energy’s diesel generators.

But a shrinking territorial economy, following the Faro mine’s closure, put the company’s plans on ice.

Since that time natural gas has become a more attractive commodity. It is 25 per cent cleaner than burning oil, and about that much cheaper. Once liquified, it takes up a small fraction (1/600) of the volume of natural gas.

Northern Cross still hopes to extract crude—the new plan is to truck it to Fort Nelson for distribution. But the company’s new focus is on selling liquified natural gas to Yukon’s next cohort of mines.

The territory’s hydroelectric grid is currently under strain. The addition of a new turbine near Mayo will help keep pace with consumer demand, but there won’t be enough capacity to feed a new mine.

Western Copper Corporation, for one, envisions a mine at its Casino project that would be powered with liquified natural gas, known in the industry as LNG. The company currently expects to be fed the fuel from a nearby port.

Avery’s operation, if it succeeds, would offer LNG closer to home, at lower costs.

Northern Cross’ pitch coincides with resurgent interest in natural gas in North America, driven by new technologies that allow companies to extract gas from previously unreachable shale deposits.

Natural gas proponents tout the fuel as a replacement for dirtier diesel. That’s led to a drive to refit North America’s trucking fleets to run on LNG. Such fleets are not uncommon in Europe but are a rarity on this continent, for lack of refuelling facilities.

The state of California is leading the push. It has more than 450 natural gas refuelling stations, and it plans to ban diesel trucks from hauling goods from the state’s two largest ports by 2012.

In Canada, EnCana Corporation wants Ottawa to help it build a chain of liquid natural gas fuelling stations between Windsor and Quebec City. The company boasts that converting just one heavy-duty truck to LNG would be equivalent to taking 325 cars off the road.

But the widespread adoption of LNG faces many obstacles - popular fears of a massive explosion being just one.

But Avery notes that liquified natural gas has been safely extracted and transported in Alaska for several decades. Alaska has shipped LNG from the Kenai Peninsula to Japan since 1969. And, since 1998, trucks have hauled LNG to Fairbanks Natural Gas’ storage facilities. From there, LNG is converted back into gas and distributed to homes and businesses.

“It’s very much proven technology,” said Avery. It’s almost like trucking propane around.”

The company faces more challenges than fundraising in tight times. Its drilling grounds overlap with two conservation controversies: the migration route of the dwindling Porcupine caribou herd and the boundaries of the Peel Watershed.

Northern Cross plans to stop drilling when caribou are nearby to avoid spooking the animals. Avery also asserts that the herd usually doesn’t venture as far south as where the company plans to begin work.

An eight-hectare slice of one property encroaches into the Peel. The territory granted the disposition, despite a ban on exploring for minerals, oil and gas in the region until February of next year.

No surface access will be allowed on the Peel lands while the ban is in place.

Karen Baltgailis, executive director of the Yukon Conservation Society, acknowledges the overlap is small, “but we still find this is inconsistent with the spirit and intent of the moratorium. To me, it seems the message that the Yukon government is sending is, ‘We’re not serious about the Peel planning process.’”

The territory is currently mulling over a proposed regional land-use plan for the Peel. The finished plan will determine which activities will be allowed in the overlapping area. Whatever the outcome, “We’ll govern ourselves accordingly,” said Avery.

Contact John Thompson at johnt@yukon-news.com