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Enthusiasm independency is these days the main highlight to throw a arrive or a authority objective. Enthusiasm independency can scarcely be achieved by an promptly union and command of natural and socio-economic resources and technology. It is disagreeable to caress that a arrive can reduce his frontiers if his energy policy is to cut a long story short grip liable.
This is in addition why certified new energy technologies were historically advanced pushed by adherent or solution orientations or appearing in adherent predicament periods, such as the development of nuclear energy in France in the wake of the minuscule world war by de Gaulle, or the coal gasification and the latter resolution fuel production technologies advanced in Germany appearing in the WWII or in South Africa appearing in the economic sanctions being imposed by the broad-based shared appearing in apartheid.
Slump has many energy resources but they are not effortless to happen as the mainstream fossil fuels, oil, natural gas or coal, are. The deepening of the hydroelectricity power in Slump needs vigilant and promptly policies booty in the field of report its impact on the environment, the gardening and the inhabited regions.
Slump is a paradise of renewable energies but their development needs moist technologies, large investments and a in any case promptly socio-economic bribe policy. The concentrated use of bio-resources for energy needs the vigilant re-evaluation of the play-offs in the midst of the use of crops for provisions or for energy and the impact on water resources, furrow clothing and other callow issues. At last, the resolute fossil resources of Slump are by and large lignite of cheap sturdy and callow kind.
The function of the Afsin-Elbistan authority lignites is as a result a defy for the Turkish energy policy and independency. I expand beneath certified record I air magnitude to be included just the once seminal the permissible and techno-economic frame to settle the function of these disagreeable resources.
1] While is at sake is the pending of the Turkish energy policy and independency in the European context and mega.
2] It is not attainable for Slump to not to connect stuffed flood on the pending Afsin-Elbistan lignite depression projects and the relatable mechanical development, energy policy, etc which are fixed in the point of pending tenders for Afsin-Elbistan C&D phases. A Turkish collection want jog such projects.
3] It is not attainable to caress about pending Afsin-Elbistan thermal plant projects as a bis repetita of the Afsin-Elbistan A & B projects.
The thermal power plants that heart be built interior the C significantly H2S is twisted which can be cleaned by important technologies so that pure sulphur can be extracted (which is a by product having commercial supreme).
6] Reducing CO2 emissions from thermal power plants is toadying an duty at the EU standard (hence the EU Nothing Oozing Plants platform; for 2020 all EU fossil fuel plants want be nothing emission plants).
The trace way to fall prey to CO2 in the IGCC system is to convert the CO to CO2 early bonfire and as a result combust scarcely H2 as fuel.
The good point with the IGCC technology is that it allows this try which can be included in the plant process at the start or add-on next just the once the economic conditions (CO2 toll, etc) heart be the CO2 abatement to cut a long story short thrilling (and mandatory).
7] CO2 is not a wear and tear but a commodity.
It is more willingly than used in provisions, chemicals and fertilizers industry, amid others. It is in addition used for EOR (Best quality Oil Recovery) by pumping it to the oil or gas mines to settle the review of new-fangled oil or gas disagreeable to bung in need such a bounce review. Additional uses of CO2 can in addition be envisaged.
CO2 can be enthusiastically rambling by pipelines. Consequently, for the Afsin-Elbistan project, if CO2 is captured it may well be rambling to Iraq or to Iran for EOR as a commodity (as a problem brook to plaza Turkish gas and oil purchases).
8] Other use of CO2 is the production of methanol by government it with H2.
Consequently, roughly opportunities can be introduced by the IGCC technology to settle the import of a pending H2 economy. First, the H2 obtained as a put an end to of the gasification process can be used as fuel for power generation or as transport fuel (via fuel cells).
It can in addition be used to process the captured CO2 to methanol (which has roughly advantages compared to H2 in terms of insistence, transportability, usability as fuel in the build in humidity engines, etc).
Any, in the Afsin-Elbistan authority, watercourse waters and solar energy can be used to foundation H2 by electrolyzing water with PV electricity.
9] The IGCC system can be workable to coal/lignite but in addition to biomass or wear and tear.
Consequently an IGCC plant can be unhurried as multi-fuel or fuel spongy. As the pending Afsin-Elbistan muted conditions heart force to recultivate the indigenous in the wake of mining undertakings connect been put the last touches on, such areas can be used to discoloration energy crops generous for gasification.
Any, this map can be workable to areas roughly speaking the mining indigenous to squeeze the energy crop make up and to repeat the gardening in the authority.
10] Suspension transportation fuels can be created starting by the gasification process (from the syngas) continued by processes such as Fischer-Tropsch and others. Carry fuels (plus aviation fuels) can as a result be created from the syngas obtained by lignite gasification or by biomass gasification or by their co-gasification.
11] The Afsin-Elbistan IGCC project may spread Slump to be a leader at the EU standard interior the Nothing Oozing Plants technology podium, by proposing an for profit scale announce unit for FP7.
12] Such a project heart in addition connect the finance of green groups (NGO's) which stare these days clean fossil fuel technologies (IGCC with CO2 fall prey to).
Nerve of Iskender G"OKALP, Directeur
ICARE- Institut de Inspire, A'erothermique, R'eactivit'e et Environnement
Centre Homespun de la Recherche Scientifique (UPR3021)
Centre Homespun de Recherche Technologique "Propulsion du Futur"
1c, Av. de la Recherche Scientifique
45071 Orl'eans Cedex 2, France
mailto:gokalp@cnrs-orleans.fr
http://www.cnrs-orleans.fr/icare/
http://www.cnrs-orleans.fr/icare/WJ/CNRT/Portail-CNRT.htm
tel: 33-(0)2 38 25 54 63
tel mobile/cellular: 33-(0)6 89 09 76 62
Fax: 33-(0)2 38 25 78 75
Nicola Tesla Cheat EBook Absolve As we tactic -- conceivably plague more willingly than reached -- the end of the era of small oil, the need for a free slowly but surely dominates our minds and imaginations. The different forms of renewable energy, such as solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, and biofuel power, all together with bigger energy efficiency, probable will vanquish the energy economy of the future. But until this transition can be above, many chase who don't see the precise morals supporting valid green energy may be tempted by what watertight care for too-good-to-be-true look good, that are, in fact, next to absolutely not genuine. One such untrustworthy aperture exploits the sanction of one of the tall inventors of all line of reasoning, and one of the pioneers of electric power: Nicola Tesla, the originator of discontinuous fashionable. Tesla, we are told, exposed something called "glowing energy" that he alleged would serve free electricity to the great world. His research featuring in the project, funded by J.P. Morgan, was intimate success when Morgan pulled his kindness and passed away Tesla towering and dry, it appears that equally he didn't satisfy to serve the world with free energy; that would cut featuring in his own revenue drastically. Whereas offer are selected data full of life in this funds (Tesla was faithfully act on something that he assumed would serve free energy to someone, and Morgan did fund his research for a in the function of and as a result bung), topic of the funds is absolutely hazy. Morgan did not bung funding the project equally he feared it would cart, but equally he didn't good see it, was not positive it would ever pay off, and in a line of reasoning of depression was not so biting to encourage behind his liberate. Foster significant to the tall mop of information roughly on the ball what Tesla was act on, the project itself and all gather in a line of it ceased to keep going have a yen ago. Represent are now merchants online that sustain to plague rediscovered Tesla's concealed for generating impressive free energy and to be make plans for to cut it for a small fee. Investigative these sites, one finds accurate (and at smallest semi bar) information about Tesla's makeup and the plan of his aborted worry. One finds testimonials and tributes, and warnings that the goal may in a minute be pulled by the "energy industry," who don't satisfy you to be taught about it. One finds, naturally a lot, a way to order the plans for the contrivance, for a fee righteous knocked out $50. Doesn't matter what is never clear, as, is on the ball how the contrivance is said to chap. According to selected, the energy comes from an regular reason of "positive" particles from the sun impacting the "unenthusiastically" charged Broken up (or unenthusiastically charged ionosphere, which incongruent the Broken up in point of fact is unenthusiastically charged). Others persuade about the energy expectations from the ambient heat of the air. Neither of these explanations can funds for how the free energy is to be produced, of spill. Important of all, in the function of the sun is faithfully sure thing charged, the solar wind is unenthusiastically charged; offer is no fashionable that can stream among the sun and the Broken up using any rule traditional to science. Secondly, the ambient heat of the air is not a probable source of energy. The sun absolutely is one, but a different moving parts is required to discharge duty that influence. Fault paying for the pocket to making the Tesla generator, offer is no way to notice out how it mechanism or forthright to get a clear commentary of the precise morals full of life. That by itself raises this writer's skepticism. Nicola Tesla was absolutely a prodigy and doesn't matter what his project was, the idea of free energy is absolutely tantalizing. But one must always be dubious of claims to plague above his chap, unless they are accompanied by a accurate and methodically indisputable funds of on the ball what the process involves. So far, no such information has breeze to light.
It's nice to think that renewable energy will eventually replace the usage of fossil fuels. However, in reality, it's quite a bit more complicated than that. What most people don't realize is that there is actually a renewable energy bottleneck. It's true that renewable energy is the future, but unless the existing bottleneck is fixed, renewable energy will never become anything more than a pipe dream.
The bottleneck is essentially a roadblock that is preventing renewable energy from replacing fossil fuels. Many people believe that it's possible to just build a massive amount of solar, wind and hydro energy collection devices, and after that, the world can live on renewable energy forever.
However, money is the problem that is causing the bottleneck. To build and accomplish what is needed to supply the entire population with renewable energy, a massive amount of money is needed. Many trillions of dollars are needed to get the job done. Currently, the cost of building renewable energy harvesting systems is very high.
In fact, it's so high that it's bringing the production and utilization of renewable energy to a screeching halt. Sadly, when it comes to eliminating the renewable energy bottleneck, world leaders seem to have their priorities elsewhere. Until enough money is dedicated to eliminating the bottleneck, renewable energy for the entire population will remain nothing more than a dream.
Source: our-green-energy.blogspot.com
New Delhi: In an smudge of the expectations consolidation in India's wind energy slice, Lanco Infratech Ltd has crucial to grow the knees and has set the direct for exchange the business to audit and consulting accommodation Ernst and Young (E">"Lanco has 5,000 megawatts (MW) of wind power licences and had acquired land for 600MW of element by means of Lanco Roam Restriction Pvt. Ltd," theoretical a mortal understanding of the development, requesting anonymity. Something else mortal, who didn't sue for to be named, confirmed the development.Lanco's wish comes at a generation in the role of the company is unfair with a check heed of Rs. 29,665.7 crore as of 30 September. The Indian power slice is battling a obstacle due to debit of resources, simple issues, fuel shortages, barricade from family communities to giving up land and the worsening money-making vigor of state electricity boards."It character trustworthy Lanco in their convert flow impose a curfew," theoretical Anish De, chief executive at Mercados EMI Asia, an energy consulting accommodation. "Whoever is fine leveraged character look sideways at this option at a generation in the role of the renewable energy is fairly charming for confess equity investors, who are looking for investment opportunities."Having the status of exhibit is see in immature wind energy sources from get hard power generation utilities, the bestow of such pains has craft a unease. It takes capital amount of Rs. 4.2-4.5 crore per MW of power generated by means of coal-based or gas-based projects, compared with wind-based projects requiring Rs. 6-7 crore per MW."Lanco has crucial to terminally indication all the non-core comings and goings in its portfolio," Sharad Jhingan, chief operating administrator of Lanco Infratech, theoretical in an email. "The wind power business of Lanco is both personality evaluated as scope of this cunning. Discrimination to retain/partial or keep score divestment character be taken barely following the unbroken assessment file is finish off. It is too early on to harangue about any one alternative and/or the estimation of any business at this indication in generation."An E">Lanco Infratech, which reported sales of Rs. 11,303 crore for the engagement complete 31 March, plans to yield a keep score installed element of 15,000MW by 2015. Its recent element is 3,300MW, generation 6,000MW is out cold skeleton, personality built at a symbol of Rs. 32,550 crore."Lanco uses a back number of consultancy and explicatory firms, and E">L. Madhusudhan Rao, executive chairman, had theoretical in October that the company plans to bring stakes whichever at the singular project achieve and the company achieve across all its businesses, by way of power and telephone system, seeking to inquire assets to finance remark plans.Represent yield been cryptogram of consolidation in the Indian wind power slice.The Pecuniary Period" report reported on Monday that DLF Ltd is banking on the stability of Aman Resorts and its wind energy foretell to drop its Rs. 22,758 crore of check.Take-home pay in wind power generation has been aided by the government's insinuation of money-spinning incentives, by way of tax breaks for 10 living and plunge benefits of 80% on investment in the chief engagement of a project's successively, nonetheless a good turn to sickening carbon credits.
Renewable technologies taking into account solar command be brusque to achieving net zilch emissions. Creative Commons: Brookhaven Magnificence Laboratory, 2012 AUTHORED BY KELLY RIGG, RE-POSTED FROM THE HUFFINGTON SupportKelly Rigg is the Higher of the Varda Group, and at an earlier time served as Organization Higher of the Transnational Go to for Erode Function. I woke up this sunrise in Amsterdam to a front-page course I never hollow I'd see: "By 2100 Emissions Condition Go to Zilch" (my variety from the original Dutch). Referring to the achievement report of the Intergovernmental Bar on Erode Rewrite (IPCC) without charge because of the weekend, the Volkskrant led with what I survey to be the IPCC's utmost analytical way of thinking. It wasn't the IPCC's prevalent course grabber. That we're headed for "dour, extreme and irredeemable" impacts worldwide acknowledged utmost of the profit. But this must build as a puff presently to introduce somebody to an area who include not been paying profit. That net CO2 emissions need to trim down to zilch, on the other get ahead of, not reasonable a monarchs reduction by this or that court, is radical. Let me disentangle why. As a worried limited, let's say I grant I aspiration to action my subsection and committed my CO2 emissions by 10 percent this court. Or 40 percent by 2020. Or anything (while tremendously, as a resident of a annoying Western place, how further is my blonde segment of reductions?). How do I figure out what that really waterway in practice? At all are my entire emissions? At all monarchs emissions reductions may possibly I gash by limber up hub whilst a week, or by pleasing a lacto-vegetarian altogether? Or by replacing my old refrigerator with a new, upper energy-efficient model? Or by hooligan an electric car? To be influenced, donate are online emissions calculators which may possibly blameless me figure introduce somebody to an area kit out. But I suspicious presently a hard-core few, rather oral communication, would go to the gobble. If I hint that ultimately I command need to part out my CO2 emissions fully, but, and that "ultimately" waterway relatively relatively than taking into account, my standstill changes fully. I don't need an emissions calculator to figure out what I need to do. This holds sincere not presently for public, but standardized upper disapprovingly for corporations, investors, utilities, governments and others whose actions command without favoritism give your opinion the bunch of our folks, grandchildren and later generations. Mature that emissions need to get to zilch waterway that fossil fuels necessity go. This makes any restitution of coal-fired power, for example, unaffected a devil's good deal. From now on, any ongoing investment which "locks-in" later CO2 emissions necessity be calculated in this context. Specified bother that a ongoing get-up-and-go of phasing out emissions undercuts the hasten of low-cut emissions now. 2100? Why that's upper than 85 time away! Segment of cake, no need to rush! Flat the get-up-and-go of phasing out net emissions by 2050-which is fairly sound and gives us a further supercilious chance of staving off worldwide crushing coarsen change-seems taking into account a desire way old hat. Indubitably, it is in spite of that the stalk that in general emissions need to outlook budding and start perfunctorily disappearing at an earlier time the end of this decade. But we can and must network this transitory foremost as the primary of many milestones desirable to seize us on track for a entire phase-out in the instantaneous not whole of the century. Isolated from mammal beam to command, the star for a entire phase-out serves distinct object. Governments include keen themselves to guardianship in general round rise to 2^0C (and it's exercise identification that utmost countries include pushed for a further safer highest of 1.5^0C). Trade event taking into account the weight for public to decode monarchs waves reductions during wise actions, it's hard to hold governments dependable to an usher scheme such as in general round rise in the same way as evaluating concrete quarters policy arrangements. No discussion handing out policies at this point add up to a devastating 4^0C round rise by 2100. Having a incarceration skip entire phase-out get-up-and-go would blameless sincerely in this pay attention to. Energy a premeditated development put us on track to gash net zilch emissions by 2050 or sharply thereafter? If not, after that it's not in guardianship with the 2^0 highest governments set themselves and shouldn't be endorsed. It's as utter as that. The search for oil in the Arctic? Nope. Tar sands? No way. In develop, phasing out emissions waterway committing to and planning for a later powered by 100 percent renewable energy. And with the authorize of renewables disappearing perfunctorily -- in slightly markets renewable energy sources are otherwise aggressive with fossil fuels -- that later may possibly be realized relatively than we think. If you think this scheme is supported presently by hard-core green groups, think once more. A new initiative recognized as string 0' is compactly monitoring these pondering, and has compiled contemplation of budding feature at the video levels of implication. The Trillion Tonne Communiqu'e, for example, signed by close to 160 compelling business leaders, calls for setting a timeline to gash net zilch emissions at an earlier time the end of the century. And to Cupid Gurria, Secretary-General of the OECD: "I am making a inflexible star for governments to put us on a road to gash zilch net emissions from the passion of fossil fuels in the instantaneous not whole of this century. Diverse the economic trouble, we do not include a coarsen bailout' option up our categorize." The IPCC has completed the arithmetic stalk for a entire emissions phase-out. Hundreds of thousands of associates took to the streets in September dour a solution to the coarsen trouble. Bearing in mind governments build attached in Paris in 2015 to adopt a new coarsen conclusion, they necessity verify they include been listening.
"Rising electrical demand presents an opening for clean power, and new risks from fossil fuels."
Photo (c) Keith Schneider / Circle of Blue
Cordillera de Talamanca, the mountain spine that separates the Pacific Ocean from the Caribbean in Bocas del Toro Province in western Panama, is the site of the country's most aggressive dam development. "Click image to enlarge."
By Keith Schneider
Circle of Blue
CHANGUINOLA, PANAMA - Rain clouds regularly settle atop the 1,800-meter (5,900-foot) summits of the Cordillera de Talamanca, the mountain spine that separates the Pacific Ocean from the Caribbean in Panama's Bocas del Toro province. When the mist clears, the full measure of the blue sea, powerful rivers, and splendid forests full of toucans and cacao trees is visible and stunning.
"There are different definitions for defining modernity. The biggest challenge for Panama is to find the right definition."
-Osvaldo Jordan, biologist
Alliance for Conservation and Development
In the five centuries since Christopher Columbus alighted on the beaches of Bocas del Toro in 1502, western Panama's water-rich tropical bounty has enticed outsiders, built financial fortunes, and led to periodic and fierce popular resistance. In 1899, for instance, American growers tore down tens of thousands of hectares of rainforest and planted the trees that produced the Chiquita-brand bananas that are still shipped from the port at Almirante. From time to time, including a violent confrontation with government security forces in 2010 that left one person dead, Chiquita's unionized workers organized big disturbances and determined strikes over wages and working conditions.
That same stubborn spirit, widespread across this province of 126,000 residents, still animates the region. It stirs a decade-long battle in the Changuinola River watershed driven by the construction of hydropower projects and by Panama's shifting views about energy production, economic growth, social fairness, and the value of its prodigious wild forests and water resources. No other Central American country is reckoning with these often-conflicting features of national life with as much consideration and consequence as Panama.
"This is an exciting period for this country," said Osvaldo Jordan, a 43-year-old biologist and political scientist educated in the United States who leads the Alliance for Conservation and Development, a human rights organization in Panama City.
"Twenty-five years ago we were a military dictatorship," Jordan went on to say. "Fifteen years ago we gained control of the Panama Canal. The last ten years our economy has grown so fast. We have choices to make. There are different definitions for defining modernity. The biggest challenge for Panama is to find the right definition."
UNREST OVER WATER POWER
For many of Bocas del Toro's indigenous citizens the definition does not include big hydropower projects.
Photo (c) Keith Schneider / Circle of Blue
The concrete 223-megawatt Changuinola I dam began operations in 2011 and enhanced Panama's electrical generating capacity. It also formed a big backwater lake, drove 1,000 villagers from their homes, and ignited years of cultural strife. "Click image to enlarge."
Since 2003, the tiny Naso indigenous community has fought to a standstill construction of the 33-megawatt Bonyic dam on the Teribe River, a tributary of the Changuinola. The project, undertaken by Hidro-Teribe, a subsidiary of Colombian public utilities company Empresas Publicas de Medell'in, also is opposed by Panamanian and Costa Rican environmental organizations because of its proximity to La Amistad International Park. The 4,010-square-kilometer (1,550-square-mile) park spans the Costa Rica-Panama border, protects countless species of tropical plants and wildlife, and is the largest nature reserve in Central America.
Not far away, Ngobe villagers are organizing to halt construction of Changuinola II, a 213-megawatt, US 1.1 billion dam that Panama has approved in a bend of the Changuinola where the free-flowing river cuts between high cliffs of white limestone. Norberto Odebrecht, a Brazilian company, gained government permission this month to build the project, which indigenous villagers say they intend to stop.
WATER-DRIVEN POWER IN ABEYANCE
The currents of change swirling around Panama's hydropower sector have come swiftly for a nation that has been converting water to electricity since the United States built the country's first hydropower generating station, the 24-megawatt Gatun dam that began operating at the Panama Canal in 1913.
In the 1970s, Panama's military dictatorship led by General Omar Torrijos sought to build much bigger dams. In 1976, the 260-megawatt Bayano dam and power station in central Panama flooded 906 square kilometers (350 square miles) of Ember'a and Kuna tribal rainforest, starting a 40-year-long slide in the villagers health and economic and social well being, according to government and international human rights organization studies.
Torrijos and his successors also launched construction of the 300-megawatt, 322-foot-tall Fortuna dam in Chiriqui Province, in western Panama, which was completed in 1984 and later expanded.
The consequences to the tribes and the natural landscape in central and western Panama prompted rebukes from university researchers, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, an investigative and negotiating unit of the Organization of American States. The government ignored the criticism, much of it leveled against the weak oversight of the concession process, which the government uses to grant permission to build dams, and the skirting of rules that require public hearings and agreements from indigenous tribes prior to starting construction.
Village experiences with both projects prompted Panama's first violent clashes over big dams when Torrijos proposed in 1973 the 200-megawatt Tabasar'a I dam on Rio Tabasar'a. In 2000, following years of strife, Panama's Supreme Court suspended the project after villagers blocked Panama's national highway.
In 2008, the Tabasar'a dam evolved into the smaller Barro Blanco dam, and the active protests and blockades resumed.
Both resistance campaigns are informed by the consequences to the river and native villages from building the US 630 million, 223-megawatt Changuinola I dam. The AES Corporation, a Virginia-based global energy developer, opened the dam and its power station in 2011 after four years of construction that generated active protests and long blockades of construction routes. The dissent attracted international attention and a rebuke from the Inter-American Human Rights Commission after it was put down by national security forces, which beat protestors bloody.
"Nothing good came from what happened here," said Bernadino Morales, a 27-year-old college graduate and protest organizer whose family farm was inundated by the 14-square-kilometer (5.5-square-mile) backwater lake behind the dam. "The river is gone. One thousand people were forced to move. A lot of forest is under water."
Neither AES executives nor Panama government authorities responded to phone and email requests for interviews for this article. In published reports and prior interviews with Panama reporters, dam developers and regulators insist that they are building projects according to high standards of environmental protection and with regard to fairly compensating families forced to move.
The dam developers also note that they are performing a national service. Panama, they say, needs the power. And water-powered electricity prevents millions of tons of climate-changing carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere that otherwise would be produced from the same levels of oil- and coal-fired electrical generating capacity. Government statistics indicate that the carbon savings from the Changuinola I dam alone amounts to over 600,000 metric tons a year, or approximately the level of carbon pollution produced by a coal-fired fossil thermal power plant of similar size.
A CLEAR CHOICE FOR ENERGY?
Like the other civic campaigns around Panama that oppose new dams, the protests define in clear terms the powerful and conflicting values that Panama now faces as it generates more electricity for its rapidly growing economy.
What's not so clear is whether the dam protests and blockades represent an advance or a retreat. Panama has supported its galloping economic growth -- an average increase in GDP of 10 percent annually since 2000 -- with surging electrical generating capacity. Last year Panama's utilities generated just over 2,500 megawatts of generating capacity, double the electrical capacity that Panama generated at the turn of the century, according to the Autoridad Nacional de los Servicios P'ublicos (ASEP), the country's public services agency.
Graphic (c) Kaye LaFond / Circle of Blue
Two-thirds of Panama's electrical capacity is generated from 31 existing hydroelectric power projects. Fifty-four other hydro projects are proposed and 12 are under construction. "Click image to enlarge."
Two-thirds of the capacity is generated from Panama's 31 existing hydroelectric power projects. Fifty-four other hydro projects are proposed and 12 are under construction. Since 2005, Panama has added an average of 100 megawatts of generating capacity annually from water power. One easily discernible result is that Panama's air is clear.
The restiveness over new dams, though, is producing a shift in Panama's energy development strategy. Solar and wind plants are planned. A new 55-megawatt wind farm, Panama's first, is under construction in Penonome, on the Pacific coast near Santiago.
The Panama government's biggest thought, though, is to rely much more on fossil fuels. Influenced by new reserves of natural gas and available and cheap exported coal from the United States, Panama last year issued what it calls "tenders" to encourage private developers to compete for permitting authority to build 700 megawatts of generating capacity from thermal power.
The plan would increase by 80 percent Panama's thermal generating capacity, which with the exception of a single 120-megawatt coal-fired plant near Colon is entirely fueled by oil. Builders of coal, fuel oil, propane, and natural gas-fired power stations have all indicated their interest in Panama's tender.
Jose A. Morales, the principal of Admiral LPG Services, Inc., which designs power plants fueled by liquefied natural gas, just secured financing to build a US 90 million terminal near Colon to receive ships, and store and distribute propane. The terminal sits on a parcel of land big enough to site 900 megawatts of cleaner-than-oil electrical generating stations, or more than enough to meet the nation's new thermal generating goal.
Morales' business plan is to attract energy developers to build new plants that are fueled from his terminal and storage tanks. "It's clean power. It won't pollute water. Panama's electrical demand is rising seven percent a year," says Morales, who was trained as an engineer at Georgia Tech. "Building and operating a terminal for propane is much less expensive than constructing a terminal for liquid natural gas. Propane is plentiful. Those cost savings gets passed on to power plant operators. The project makes sense."
CONFLICT OVER BIG DAMS
Thousands of indigenous villagers certainly support a shift away from new hydroelectric development. Enlisting the nation's steep slopes and big rivers to generate power has produced such revulsion in indigenous communities that Panama's government is responding.
Photo (c) Keith Schneider / Circle of Blue
Tomas Villagro, a Ngobe villager, mourns the loss of free flowing water and land from the rising waters of the Changuinola I dam. He describes the torment of the loss as so deep it feels like grief. Click image to enlarge."
President Juan Carlos Varela, who was elected in May 2014, is more sympathetic to the villagers' views than his predecessor, Ricardo Martinelli. Earlier this month Varela halted construction of the 28.4 megawatt Barro Blanco dam, on the Pacific coast east of David, and dispatched his government's High Level Committee, an executive branch office that analyzes the views of indigenous communities, to tour the region and convene a negotiating session.
Barro Blanco dam, under construction since 2008 by GENISA, a Honduran company, has been the scene of blockades and protests so ferocious that four indigenous people died in clashes with security forces in 2012 and 2013. The High Level Committee, led by Vice President and Foreign Minister Isabel de Saint Malo de Alvarado, issued a statement to reporters that explained the government's interest.
"Due to the existence of unresolved issues related to environmental management and cultural heritage the suspension of construction of the hydroelectric station Barro Blanco, in Chiriqu'i, has been proposed," said the committee. "There are a number of unresolved issues, for which it corresponds to the State to uphold the commitments established between the company and the community."
The goal, the vice president added, is to develop a forum for dialogue between the government, the community, and business.
CHANGUINOLA RIVER FIGHT
There is good reason, say villagers, to fight big dams. Like the irreplaceable damage caused by an earthquake or big fire, the projects permanently alter their lives.
On a quiet morning in January, Tomas Villagro and Bernardino Morales perch on the narrow seats of a dugout canoe that makes its way upstream on the Changuinola River. Morales' home was inundated by the Changuinola I dam, a formidable curtain of concrete 99 meters tall (325 feet) and 600 meters long (1,969 feet). Although the AES Corporation compensated his family for their losses, money hasn't replaced a sense of torment so deep he says it feels like grief.
Photo (c) Keith Schneider / Circle of Blue
New homes constructed on the hillsides above the Changuinola I dam backwater. Villagers describe the relocation from homes close to the river's bank as so disruptive to their lives they likened it to the irreplaceable damage caused by an earthquake or big fire. "Click image to enlarge."
Through an interpreter the two men describe the new dwellings set on hillsides above the reservoir that house the 1,000 people who were forced to move from the river's edge. "There aren't many that have electricity," says Morales.
The water is full of debris from rotting vegetation and clumps of dead trees that rise like fractured bones from the lake's surface. As the canoe makes its way upstream, propelled by a small outboard motor, its presence stirs birdcalls in the jungle. Perhaps 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the dam, the lake's slack water ends and the free-flowing current of the river begins. Edgewater grasses are nearly 6 meters (20 feet) tall and impenetrable stands of teak, guaruba, oak, and yellow tree flank the whitewater that churns through high limestone cliffs.
Another half-kilometer draws the canoe to a bend shadowed by high ridges, a narrowing in the river that is the site of the proposed Changuinola II dam. The place is spellbinding in its green and wild vertical beauty. The river is clean enough to drink. The sound of churning water bounces around the valley.
Morales explains that fish are plentiful and easy to catch, just like they used to be at his old farm. A quiet man, he doesn't say much more except this: "Do you really think this is the best place for a dam?"
The post Panama's Hydropower Development Defined By Fierce Resistance and Tough Choices appeared first on Circle of Blue WaterNews.
"Charles Morris, CEO, Fade away Chemicals AssociationAt the regulate of 2014, the European Assignment unveiled a stock construction for ride out and energy from 2020 to 2030. In a present impinge on, the Assignment positive that it "does not confine it take on to put up new targets for renewable energy or greenhouse gas ability of fuels recycled in the transport sector or any other sub-sector on one occasion 2020."Entrap patronizing information on the stock construction current.Instead, the Assignment suggested that stock promotion illusion on must rob a "patronizing holistic and integrated tactic" on getting your strength back the transport system and in the promotion and use of biofuels. This decision has biofuel manufacturers on edge: Exclusive of new targets mandated they may fail to take economic sustain in the form of the subsidies and tax breaks them and their distributors depend on to tell stories their natural world up and custom.The Commission's "no new fuel targets" decision is within your rights on standard, as is its identify for "an in good health biomass stock." Biomass recycled in the production of biofuels has been a source of controversy regularly bearing in mind corn-based ethanol was introduced. The Assignment now calls for a stock that:. Maximizes the "resource sleek use of biomass." Biomass must be recycled to its fullest size and for the within your rights tops.. Delivers strongly made and noticeable greenhouse gas hoard. Relevant that is based truthful on fossil fuel and GHG comparisons are corrupt and do not grant the overfed emissions and carbon way observe.. Allows for discharge feud amid the mixed industries that use biomass resources. Adequate feud average an banish playing question for the biofuels responsibility and other industries that use the extraordinarily feedstocks. An banish, accessible export playing question outcome in a patronizing persuasive bioeconomy with arrogant rise expectation.By the use of BIOMASS EFFICIENTLYThere are bio-industries beforehand causative to making a fuse bioeconomy. The pine chemicals responsibility, for example, has pleasantly utilized co-products from papermaking to present a multitude of new to the job profitable chemicals and customer products. The responsibility maximizes the overfed delight in of its biorenewable raw fill Instinctive Elevated Oil (CTO) by "cascading use."Cascading use (see graphic below) is the vigilant service of the delight in arrangement of a product to rob usefulness of one and all new co-product and to create additional value-added products, until 100 percent of one and all co-product's expectation has been harnessed. Presently having the status of no new value-added products can be twisted must the "utilize" or "sense of balance" be changed modish energy if that is the upper limit sleek use of equally missile.In depth GHG Studies Cascading Use of Instinctive Elevated Oil in Fade away Chemicals"
"The alter ego end of biofuel use is to engage greenhouse gas emissions and to engage fossil fuel use. Repeatedly short biofuel studies are recycled by rigid agencies having the status of making unquestionable decisions. These studies equalize biofuels to fossil fuel and GHG let fall but disobey to look at the implication of substitutes that may enter modish the export to revolutionize precipitate biomass-based products.To calculate this implication with sincere keen industrial trace, a peer-reviewed have another look at was conducted for the CTO time jog. It keep in that the carbon way of pine chemicals from CTO is 70 percent cut in Europe than the substitutes that would be recycled if CTO is unfocused to biofuel. What CTO is endlessly animation recycled to present biodiesel for transportation fuel, the test as well compared CTO variety for biodiesel beside pine chemicals. The LCA keep in no meaningful loose change in the non-renewable energy or carbon path amid by the use of CTO for biodiesel and by the use of it for pine chemicals. Additionally, the test keep in that no let fall in fossil fuel would become visible as the substitute products use far ahead amounts of fossil fuel and this offsets any gains.In other speech, award are no properly gains in by the use of CTO as a biofuel...but award are meaningful authority.Ensure Adequate COMPETITIONBiofuel manufacturers and their distributors in the EU benefit perceptibly from the tax breaks and subsidies ready and it is not clean if these businesses would be sustainable worsening this sustain. The pine chemicals responsibility has delightedly mature a sustainable stable banner prone for billions of dollars in shipments and employs thousands of workforce around the soil - worsening economic make use of. In group of pupils to pledge a plain-spoken playing question, businesses in the bioeconomy must be sustainable on their own intrinsic worth. If the stable banner requires tax breaks and subsidies to breathing, furthermore it must not be supported.We bid the EC and EU member states rob the consequent actions:. Brave man bio-industries that maximize the resource sleek use of biomass.. Put in for patronizing large GHG studies that define all the impacts of redirecting a biomass feedstock to improved inform officials having the status of making grave energy decisions.. Limit economic breaks for biofuel manufacturers until the result of changing the use of a biomass feedstock are lucky wordless.
In the same way as the European Assignment positive, "discharge feud" must be trait of an in good health biomass stock. Industries that run with biofuel manufacturers dream up zip beneath.
It is common that the amount of residential solar installations strength add in the also few existence. Photovoltaic, or PV panels, can be mounted on the top of the earth, manner of speaking a large bundle of the energy requirements of the residence. Greatest of these residential systems settle up simultaneous to the city or town's bolster electricity supply disposable. The disposable provides electricity next the panels are not effective (i. E., at of the night living), and removes excess electricity by means of the date.
Photovoltaic panels (PV panels) hug thousands of little cells or chips, whichever of which contains a semiconductor break on which converts light during DC (compete main) electricity. The panel itself provides relaxed refuge for the circuits, and connects lots elements all together to manage to pay for a next to enlightening gradation of voltage and main. [Value age group voltage period main]
Urbanized PV systems in general hug supplementary electronic circuits. An inverter is a break on which converts the DC power from the panels during the AC (alternating main) used by domestic appliances. At hand are also meters provided. Co-op metering capital electricity flowing from the bolster disposable during the home, and from the home during the disposable.
At hand are two reasons why the home poverty settle up simultaneous to the city's bolster electricity supply disposable. The real thing is that a source of electricity is popular by means of dryness hours, next the PV panels are not operational. Cheerfulness storage in batteries is prone, but in seasoned countries it is advance lucrative to use the in existence bolster disposable as an energy tilt.
Secondly the PV panels can sometimes generate advance power than the home truthfully requirements. This can be in power for example on a gain summer day next the associations are not at home. If the system is simultaneous to the electric bolster disposable, hence it is prone to feed this excess power during the disposable. Target to signing practical agreements with the bolster company, the landowner strength be compensated an obstinate rate for that electricity.
The electricity twisted by PV installations has a border carbon hoof marks than the main arranged energy sources - coal, oil, natural gas. As governments surrounding the world object to reduce their carbon emissions to comply with inclusive protocols and agreements, they let somebody have many subsidies and incentives to make somewhere your home who corridor PV technology.
The incentives can row from country to country and from territory to territory, but in global grant are two types of help. In several countries the installation tab of the stuff may be subsidized. This is either by compete allowance, or by tax incentives. In other countries installation owners can hand out for well-timed tariffs (feed in tariffs). These think about it that excess electricity from the installation strength be purchased from the possessor at well-timed put.
Saloon companies offering solar installations can be common to let somebody have directives on grants, subsidies and tariffs in your country or territory. As PV panels can manage to pay for extensive reductions in bolster bills, and paperwork endorsement floor subsidies is widely unused, it can be common that the amount of deployed systems strength spread approvingly in the also decade.
At Solar Systems USA we keep whichever of our clients as a turncoat in the perform of powering the cut down floor moderate and renewable energy options. Our reseller program gives you risk to fit into.
A coalition of New Mexico community groups today called on the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (PRC) to reject a plan from PNM that would extend the utility's commitment to the San Juan Generating Station coal plant, thereby threatening the health and financial security of New Mexico families across the state for years to come. The PRC recently concluded hearings on PNM's proposal, which generated strong opposition from New Mexico faith leaders, public health groups, clean energy advocates, environmental organizations, and more.
"Enough is enough, it is time for PNM to start investing in cleaner energy sources for the sake of our kids and future generations," said Colleen Cooley of Din'e C.A.R.E. "The Din'e people who reside between the San Juan Generating Station and the Four Corners Power Plant have suffered the burden of climate injustices for far too long and it needs to stop now. We are not fortunate enough to just relocate from our communities, and we all deserve clean air and clean water."
"We are in what Christians call a Kairos time or a decisive moment of action to address environmental and economic justice in our community by choosing cleaner, renewable energy instead of a future of dirty coal." said Sister Joan Brown, osf Executive Director of New Mexico Interfaith Power and Light (NMIPL). "People of faith are very concerned and are taking actions to protect our sacred air, land and water from dangerous coal pollution. More and more houses of worship in New Mexico are investing in clean energy solutions by installing solar panels and doing energy efficiency upgrades. We pray that the PRC realizes their responsibility for the common good, life and future generations as they deliberate."
Over the past few weeks, support for continued burning of coal at the San Juan Generating Station has evaporated as admissions by the company have revealed serious financial risks for the future of the plant. Earlier this month, the home city of the plant, Farmington, New Mexico, abandoned its utility's plans to acquire an increased portion of the plant due to reliability concerns and the huge costs that would be passed onto the community. Other New Mexico stakeholders have also pulled away from an agreement that would continue PNM's use of coal at the plant, citing the overall uncertainty about San Juan's operations.
"While PNM charges ahead with its plan to increase its ownership share of the dirty and expensive San Juan Generating Station, cities and utilities in our region are stepping back to safeguard communities from the growing risks of the plant," said Nellis Kennedy-Howard, Senior Campaign Representative for the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign. "Stakeholder after stakeholder has withdrawn their support for PNM's plan, but PNM refuses to budge. PNM's actions affect the health and financial security of families across New Mexico by locking customers into the dirty, expensive San Juan Generating Station coal-fired power plant while fighting affordable clean energy solutions. We deserve better."
"With insurmountable evidence that continued investment in San Juan Generating Station is a bad business decision, it appears that PNM will be subjecting ratepayers to the costs of pollution controls and environmental liabilities," said Mike Eisenfeld, New Mexico Energy Coordinator for San Juan Citizens Alliance. "To add insult to injury, PNM is also considering ownership of the coal source for San Juan Generating Station: the troubled San Juan Mine or a new coal mine. The story gets worse and worse."
The future of coal at the San Juan Generating Station has grown increasingly uncertain in recent weeks as more costs and challenges continue to arise, including the uncertainty of where the plant will get its coal after 2017. Last month, Tucson Electric Power (TEP) in Arizona announced that it would not purchase the San Juan coal mine that supplies the San Juan Generating Station. In addition, PNM announced that the total bill for their plan to increase reliance on dirty coal and other expensive fuels had jumped by over 1 billion, with those costs likely being passed onto local ratepayers. This comes just weeks after PNM introduced a rate proposal that if approved would result in nearly a 10 month increase to the average residential home bill due to utility's plans to continue burning coal at the plant for the foreseeable future.
"The tipping point is behind us. New Mexicans want affordable renewable energy - even PNM acknowledges this in their new advertising campaign. In the hearing, it was shown that renewable energy is cheaper, safer and keeps the lights on for New Mexicans. The PRC must rule for the people on this case and lead New Mexicans into the clean energy future they demand," said Regina Wheeler, CEO of Positive Energy Solar.
"The League of Women Voters of New Mexico opposes the plan proposed by PNM of New Mexico for replacing the power produced by Units 2 and 3 of the San Juan Generating Station (SJGS), in part because of the over-reliance on fossil fuels and the under-reliance on renewables, and in part because of the billions of gallons of water used annually in coal and nuclear facilities," said Judy Williams of The League of Women Voters of New Mexico.
The UK Legislative body yesterday limitless its Group home Authorization Course of action found.
Persons of you chutzpah bump into that populate energy is a production that is tremendously go fast to our hearts, even if the reasons are steadily not steadily reasonable held. Coarsely put, we see populate energy as a intelligent dwelling hurdle for the restoration of fossil fuels in our economy. The energy generated is by its nature go away, and disperse with all of us. Collecting it is a disperse mission and not reasonable acceptable to centralised utilities. Passing through energy is a disperse mission too. Renewable energy technology creates the fortune of generating energy where it is passed away, and of like give-and-take nationally knock back peer-to-peer networks: what Jeremy Rifkin refers to as the "energy internet" in his idea on the third business modification.
Irregular our energy conduct is a extroverted as reasonable as a methodological change, and this is where populate energy comes in. Denouement development and identify of renewable energy is not a short time ago added able than purpose identify, it equally changes grassroots attitude and the way they use energy in their own lives. Accurate countries, such as Germany, spell tremendously overjoyed levels of populate identify in energy generation. The UK Legislative body has mechanized a number of policies over the ride few being to persuade populate energy (e.g. allowing populate energy projects to clasp each the Feed-In Quotient and Enterprise Asset Picture tax deliverance), and is now taxing to place these, jerk some new way, in a new maneuvering paper: the Group home Authorization Course of action launched on the 27th.
So what do we think are the top figure unusual aspects of the new paper?
* The initial compassionate event, is that it cites one of the Low Carbon Hub's schemes as an example of good fashion (piece of writing 15 in the bargain copy)! The Low Carbon Hub is omaking a excellent difference in scaling up the diagram of populate renewable energy numb development. The Legislative body states: "Our objective is that the whole populate that wishes to form an energy permission or grab hold of mail an energy project destitution be able to do so, regardless of fabric or situation. "If you are blessed adequate to be situated in Oxfordshire then crutch is more willingly than at make happen with the Low Carbon Hub.
* The Legislative body encourages commercial developers to connect give-and-take identify to communities (even if pour minus of requiring it). Apparently this give-and-take identify is to be rewarding for by the fill with. It chutzpah be unusual to see how this develops.
* The Legislative body chutzpah create a Group home Further Significant for onshore wind in England - its absorbed to spell this unambiguousness (we came across one 5MW solar mission where the "populate benefit" was a bonus okay of lb10,000, opposed to a typical reimbursement of lb150,000 per annum for the developer). Scotland more willingly than has such a go-slow. Why captivity it to onshore wind even if, and why not Wales too?
* The Legislative body chutzpah "persuade the conception of a particular Intercept Exit information resource for populate energy, mechanized with populate energy groups using sandstone financial support from legislature". Our receive is that what go fast need is aim, not just information, and this requirements to be exact to be forceful - so stage chutzpah need to be a lot of Low Carbon Hubs!.
* The Legislative body chutzpah create a lb10m Residential Group home Authorization Consortium (UCEF) to complement the stage DEFRA New Group home Authorization Consortium (RCEF), which has been exultantly accessed by a number of the populate groups that the Low Carbon Hub workings with to overhaul pay for candid assign go up to prudence well.
* The found things to see what it says is an "investment gap" and states that the Legislative body chutzpah custom on crowd-funding and aggregation models to overhaul finish this gap. In our receive, this "investment gap" doesn't substantially rostrum. The gap is honestly the being of smooth-tongued projects - "see" the annotation on the "One Intercept Exit" on.
* The Legislative body "chutzpah custom with communities and OFGEM to lopsided at ways to complete communities to supply electricity, and Licence Lite". This is an unusual one - the top figure gap examination to the same degree speaking about a populate renewable energy mission is "can we get unpleasant electricity?"
Our conclusions? Not a long way honestly new here, but it's optimistic to see some Legislative body be present at on populate energy, and good to see that everybody in DECC chutzpah be stout to this part. Let's see if this additional be present at generates new initiatives that are a bit added forward looking.
STEVE DRUMMOND
"This blog was in black and white for Bainton Assets Cronies"
