Association of EnergyEngineers
New York Chapter
May 2011Newsletter Part 2
Hydropower’s Resurgence and the Controversy Around It
By Kate Galbraith, NYTimes, May 15, 2011
AUSTIN, TEXAS — Hydropower, a renewable energy source often overshadowed by excitement about wind and solar power, is enjoying something of a global resurgence.
Huge, controversial dam projects have recently made headlines in Brazil, Chile and Laos. Many developing countries, hungry for energy to supply their growing economies over the long term, are determined to keep building more modest-sized dams too.
Record amounts of hydropower capacity came online in 2008 and 2009, the most recent years for which data are available, according to Richard Taylor, executive director of the International Hydropower Association in London.
“There has been, over the last decade, a dramatic increase in the deployment of new hydropower capacity,” Mr. Taylor said.
The private sector, he added, has become more willing to provide financing for projects, which include not only the construction of new dams but also the modernizing of existing ones in places like Europe and the United States. The biggest new dams can cost billions of dollars.
But the renewed attention to hydropower, which accounts for about 16 percent of the global electricity mix, comes with environmental red flags. More attention than ever focuses on people who face displacement, as well as the effects of new dams on land and fish.
In Chile last week, demonstrators protested against a government plan to dam two rivers that wind through a wild, remote part of Patagonia. Last month, officials from Southeast Asian countries failed to reach an agreement about a proposed dam project on the Mekong River in Laos, amid concerns from Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand about downstream implications.
An additional environmental issue — one that has caused mounting concern in recent years — is climate change. Changes in rain or snowfall patterns can drastically affect the amount of power a dam produces and also the amount of sediment flowing through the river.
Prolonged droughts are already taking their toll. Brazil, which gets about 80 percent of its electricity from hydropower, experienced a bad drought about a decade ago, and Chile has struggled with drought, too, according to Deborah Lynn Bleviss, a professor in the energy, resources and environment program at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington.
A 2009 drought took a toll on countries including Guatemala, Venezuela, Argentina and Uruguay, as well as Brazil, she said.
“All have had impacts on hydropower capacity in these countries,” Ms. Bleviss said in an e-mail.
The region around Three Gorges Dam in China, the largest hydropower project in the world, is coping with a severe drought that has closed part of the Yangtze River to shipping, according to the state-run China Daily newspaper.
Small hydropower projects are especially vulnerable to climate change, according to Leandro Alves, who heads the energy division for the Inter-American Development Bank’s infrastructure and environment department, because they may not have enough reservoir storage capacity to compensate for decreased precipitation.
However, some dams may get more water, not less, as the climate changes. In a summary report on renewable energy released last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that the effect of climate change would vary depending on a project’s location.
“For hydropower the overall impacts on the global potential is expected to be slightly positive,” the report states.
“However, results also indicate the possibility of substantial variations across regions and even within countries.”
In Norway, which gets nearly all of its electricity from dams, climate change on balance may benefit hydropower plants. “The studies have uncertain results, but the main result is that climate change on average will lead to more rain and thereby better production capability in Norwegian power plants,” said Tor Arnt Johnsen, who heads the analysis section of the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate, which is part of the Ministry for Oil and Energy, in an e-mail.
However, he noted, climate change is expected to lead to substantial weather variations. Thus, in especially dry and cold years, the dams are likely to produce less electricity, which could result in high electricity prices and the need to import power.
One Norwegian study has forecast that climate change will typically cause power prices in Norway to fall, because of both increased hydropower production and also the expectation that demand for electricity will be lower in warm weather, said Gorill Kristiansen, who works for the Research Council of Norway’s climate program.
So climate change will have some kind of effect on hydropower production, but the flip side is that the case for hydropower rests partly on the desire to combat greenhouse gas emissions.
Indeed, said Mr. Taylor of the International Hydropower Association, this is among the reasons why the private sector’s interest in dam-building has revived.
Hydropower accounts for about 30 percent of the projects in the Clean Development Mechanism, he said. (The mechanism is part of the international emissions-reduction system.)
Hydropower is arguably the most reliable — and certainly the most established — renewable electricity source in the world. It is a good way to back up intermittent renewables like wind, because the dams can add power instantly when the wind dies down, and cut back when there is a steady breeze.
In Europe, according to Mr. Taylor, growth in wind power is driving increased interest in “pumped storage,” which is the concept of using excess wind power at night to pump water uphill, and then releasing it to generate power during the day when electric demand is high.
Dams will also help to control flood risks in some areas, Mr. Taylor said, noting that this is important, given the severe weather swings climate change is expected to bring.
But big hydropower projects are not free of emissions. New projects do generate greenhouse gases — less than burning fossil fuels, but certainly more than wind power, according to Mr. Alves of the Inter-American Development Bank.
This is partly because the plants and trees that get flooded when a reservoir is built eventually decompose and emit methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide. The Inter-American Development Bank has undertaken a project in Brazil to find ways to process the methane emissions, which could be used to make electricity.
The bank is also emphasizing the importance of refurbishing dams, as mechanical equipment reaches the end of its useful life after decades of use. The turbines can be replaced so the dam can produce more power, without the need for a new dam. That way, “we’re not touching the environment or the ecosystem,” Mr. Alves said.
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A Green Roof Grows In Brooklyn
BySarah Goodyear, Grist, May 13, 2011
CRIMSON CLOVER blooms on the roof at the Linda Tool factory. (Photo: Sarah Goodyear) Standing on the barren, cracked sidewalk outside the nondescript brick building that houses the Linda Tool factory in Red Hook, Brooklyn, you would have no idea that there is a verdant meadow three stories above your head.
Oh, but there is. And on this ridiculously beautiful spring day, about 20 wildflower enthusiasts -- including hippie-ish middle-aged women, hipster-ish young couples, and a trio of European guys in tight jeans -- are picking their way through the grass and blossoms on Linda Tool's green roof. They snap pictures of flowers in bloom and examine a volunteer sapling whose tender new leaves are fluttering in the breeze.
"That's crimson clover, isn't it?" says one bespectacled man, pointing to a colorful clump of flowers. A huge camera hangs around his neck. He wears khaki shorts and wide-brimmed safari hat, looking more prepared for the trails of the Catskill Mountains than the streets around the Red Hook housing projects, which loom a couple of blocks to the north.
"Yes, it's not a native," says Paul Mankiewicz of the Gaia Institute, somewhat sheepishly. "But it's beautiful."
Mankiewicz was leading the rooftop tour as part of NYC Wildflower Week, an annual event that looks to connect the city's residents with the nature that persists, against the odds, all around them. Organizers offer 45 tours of wildflower habitat in all five boroughs -- "53,000 acres of open space" the website boasts.
The Red Hook housing projects are visible to the north, as is the distant skyline of Lower Manhattan. Photo: Sarah Goodyear
The 12,500-square-foot Red Hook rooftop -- which looks out onto a parking lot full of schoolbuses, an abandoned building, and a huge Ikea store -- has got to be one of the more unusual Wildflower Week venues. But Mankiewicz, who designed it, thinks spaces like this should be a lot more common. He says that Linda Tool's owner, Mike DiMarino, "is an amazing sort of person. He wanted to make his tool business as green as he could."
And so DiMarino secured grant funding for construction of a green roof and contacted Mankiewicz, who is something of a green roof evangelist. Mankiewicz's long-fingered hands are rough and weathered from years of outdoor labor, and he often lays one on his heart when speaking, as if in emphasis. He has been doing this work since the 1980s -- building a greenroof and weather station for a school in the Bronx, developing plans for wetland restoration in the East River, collaborating on an "urban farm" art project.
Not only does the roof look good, it does good. By lowering the temperature around the tool factory's HVAC system, it reduces cooling costs by a third. It captures more than 90 percent of rainwater that falls on it, virtually eliminating runoff -- an arrangement that figures into the city's stated strategy to reduce sewer overflow with green, rather than gray, infrastructure. The tool factory, a spotless facility that manufactures aerospace parts among other things, will also be able to recycle the (clean) water it uses to cool its precision laser-cutting machines by pumping it up to the roof.
And the mix of vegetation, which includes narrow-leaved goldenrod and swamp milkweed, also provides habitat for birds, bees, and butterflies. Unlike the more common, German-style roofs that are planted with only with sedums, this one is an ecosystem unto itself. The grasses grow chest-high by midsummer. Ten beehives will be going up on the roof soon as well.
Paul Mankiewicz. (Photo: Sarah Goodyear) The basis for all his projects is a patented super-lightweight soil medium that incorporates recycled polystyrene foam and compost. Much of the styrofoam comes from packing materials discarded at the city's Fulton Fish Market. "You're standing on the waste product of the city of New York," he says, as the clover nods in the breeze. "And it looks a lot better than the Fresh Kills landfill. I think it looks a lot better than most things."
"We need spaces for the creatures that support the rest of us," said Mankiewicz. He surveyed the roof with a satisfied expression. "I think it looks better in green than in black."
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Solar Power Lights Up Bangladesh Rural Areas
DHAKA, May 16 (Reuters) - Solar power is in place in nearly a million homes in rural Bangladesh, which is drastically short of electricity, the World Bank said on Monday.
"More than 870,000 homes and shops in remote rural areas have installed solar home systems with support from the World Bank and other development partners," the global lender said in a statement.
REUTERS/Rafiqur Rahman
A mud house equipped with a solar panel near Patulia village in Gazipur district, north of the Bangladeshi capital, May 5, 2007.
The World Bank had provided additional financing of $130 million in 2009 to support the government's efforts to reach more households in rural areas with solar home systems.
"Access to electricity has many benefits including better quality of life, more time spent by children for study, and opportunities for new village enterprises."
Barely 45 percent of Bangladesh's 150 million people have access to power but they still face frequent power cuts that often trigger protest.
The impoverished country faces 2,000 megawatts of electricity shortages. In addition, population growth, increased industrialization, additional connections, and rise in the use of modern, electrical appliances have boosted demand for electricity, currently growing at a rate of over 500 MW a year.
Solar home systems have proven to be a viable option to provide electricity to villages the national grid cannot reach, the World Bank said.
Bangladesh aims to meet 10 percent of its total power demand from renewable energy sources by 2020. Renewable energy contributes less than 1 percent to overall power generation.
The government, facing growing public anger over power and utility shortage, says it is exploring various means, including nuclear power generation, to overcome the problem, which is one of the key constraints to growth and is considered as a big barrier to foreign investments.
(Reporting by Ruma Paul; Editing by Anis Ahmed)
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Bill Gates On Energy Philanthropy,
RD Funding, &
Why The U.S. Will Out-Innovate China
ByGrist 11 May 2011
Photo: nonfictionmedia
Bill Gates goes casual at the Climate Solutions breakfast.
THE BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION -- the richest in the world, with an endowment of $37 billion -- doesn't have plans to focus on clean energy and climate change, Bill Gates said on Tuesday. Speaking at a fundraiser for Northwest nonprofit Climate Solutions, he argued that energy markets and investments are too large for philanthropic money to make much of a dent. But Gates is investing in energy-tech startups himself -- he called out nuclear company TerraPower in particular -- and he hopes those investments make money that can then be plowed into his foundation.
What the private sector doesn't do so well is basic R&D, said Gates, so he wants the U.S. government to more than double funding for energy R&D. He would rather shift the balance money from "present generation" industries like wind, which gets government backing via the production tax credit and rapid depreciation, to basic R&D.
Gates believes that "breakthrough" innovations in energy technology are crucial; today's tech, like "cute" rooftop solar panels, isn't enough. That stance that has earned him criticism from some climate activists like Joe Romm who want to focus on deploying existing clean technologies. But Gates insisted on Tuesday that to get CO2 emissions from energy production to approach zero, "We need a breakthrough. We need, maybe, multiple breakthroughs, to create a portfolio of solutions that deal with the environment, that get the costs down." And he argued that the U.S. is far better positioned than China or other countries to be the source of these breakthrough innovations.
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World Wastes 1 Billion Tons of Food a Year
By Ben Rooney @CNNMoney May 11, 2011
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The United Nations said Wednesday that about 1.3 billion tons of food is lost or wasted every year, which amounts to roughly one third of all the food produced for human consumption.
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization commissioned a report on food loss and waste as rising prices and diminished production worldwide have contributed to an increase in food insecurity.
"The issue of food losses is of high importance in the efforts to combat hunger, raise income and improve food security in the world's poorest countries," the report states. "Food losses have an impact on food security for poor people, on food quality and safety, on economic development and on the environment."
According to the report, food losses occur as a result of inefficiencies in food production and processing operations that diminish supplies. Food waste, by contrast, is when retailers and consumers throw edible food in the trash.
Consumers in rich nations waste a combined 222 million tons a year, according to the report. That's almost as much as all the food produced in sub-Saharan Africa.
The report puts much of the blame on retailers in rich nations that throw out food simply because it looks unappealing, and the food industry's 'all-you-can-eat' marketing tactics, which encourage consumers to buy more than they need.
Food Price Hikes Could Push Millions To Poverty
"Perhaps one of the most important reasons for food waste at the consumption level in rich countries is that people simply can afford to waste food," the report states.
Food loss, on the other hand, is mainly a problem in the developing world, where nations lack the infrastructure and technology to efficiently produce food, according to the report.
"Given that many [small] farmers in developing countries live on the margins of food insecurity, a reduction in food losses could have an immediate and significant impact on their livelihood," the report states.
But food is not the only resource that is being wasted. By throwing away so much food, the world is squandering water, land, energy, labor and capital, the report found.