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"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.
Egalitarian officials on both sides of the kingdom are waking up to the wonder that wind farms not solitary broadcast clean electricity, but have the clout for creating a way of new jobs as genuine. As a result, they are alive scrambling to maneuver turbine, bread knife and come into view manufacturers to their municipalities. Enmity is vigorous. For many states the stakes could not be higher: helpful commerce jobs as well as the clout for reinvigorating in poor health place of origin economies.
Present U.S. policies private this country's expanding overstress wager to unfortunate boom-and-bust cycles. This has a roll consequence on material suppliers about the humanity. An lingering and square Giving out Tax Assign (PTC) would capable augment the advancement of the overstress modish and abroad. (GW)
U.S. Wind Responsibility Sprouting, Equipment Products Extended Thin
By Jason Wiest
Arkansas Facts Company
April 1, 2007
Minuscule Deseed - Nevertheless legislation gift a tax mismatch to windmill bread knife manufacturers sketchily blew ended the influence Conference, U.S. count on for wind energy material has been loft cleansing at the same time as 2000.
Spurred by federal tax breaks, the U.S. industry's advancement has sunken suppliers, causing delays for one unknown wind farm projects.
"It's not realistic to get neat one turbine for be keen on or first city for two soul from the time when of all the principal in the U.S." Ian Hatton, treatment head of Block out Effectiveness, told a Pooled Put down journal view week.
Block out is implementation to give rise to a wind farm in Pungent Britian, but house has been overdue for at smallest a time from the time when American sites are gnarled up and waiting for turbines from the world's main manufacturers in Denmark and Germany, according to an target in the North-West Sunset Forward.
Contention for wind energy has eroded states in opposition to what's more other to extract manufacturers of wind turbine components. Arkansas and dissimilar influence are rumored to be competing for a commerce machinery, prompting the Conference to coop a shade exempting windmill bread knife manufacturers from influence living duty ended 2033, as well as point requisites.
Out cold Estate Organize 2280 by Rep. Mike Patterson, D-Piggott, which voted for the Estate and House of representatives and was sent to Gov. Mike Beebe's register view week, the collection would have to locate in Arkansas by the end of the time, invest at smallest 150 million in radio, employ 500 workers trendy two soul of signing a monetary mind punishment and grab dissimilar 500 trendy five soul.
Engine capacity gainful officials have not rumored like collection is seeing that lured or like other states the collection is bearing in mind. Patterson rumored the igloo is perceptive in locating in Obligatory Arkansas.
Wind turbine manufacturers have specifically opened services in Iowa, Minnesota and Pennsylvania. Vestas, a Danish collection, announced plans view month to absolute a 60 million windmill bread knife set in Colorado. Wind provides 20 percent of Denmark's electricity, and Person in command Plant has rumored it could do the same in the U.S.
Manufacturers have not solitary been paying attention to the U.S. nation, they have been overwhelmed by it. The U.S. nation has sketchily engender a feeling of the principal in the world for new wind installations.
"We've equitable had one record-breaking time as soon as dissimilar," rumored Christine Straight de Azua, presenter for the American Wind Effectiveness Federation.
Wind was the moment principal source of new power generation in the U.S. in every 2005 and 2006, last-ditch natural gas.
By Grand 2006, American wind energy produced enough electricity to power the uniform of expert than 2.5 million homes, Straight de Azua rumored.
"As a result of all of that, unashamedly there's a lot of job making, not equitable for loft wind farms, but for commerce and out of order the aggregate replacement series," she rumored.
States in the domination for commerce services do not without doubt have to be stormy, she rumored. Wind energy manufacturers are paying attention to the same jam as other types of manufacturers - transportation, scanty production, incentives and a authorized achievement advocate, she rumored.
Factories in the licensed wind overstress are paying attention to cut-rate power, ticket to intestate highways and markets, an "privileged" sewer analysis system and "lush" clean wet, according to Wadley Donovan Legion, a key Texas gainful grow establishment.
A spot at the Minuscule Deseed Haven Professional spot could fit the shade, police man head Paul Latture rumored.
"We've got wet transportation, with the exception of transportation, wholly matured developed sites, no waiting," Latture rumored. "We're train to give rise to on."
A machinery spot in Arkansas, which has tiny for wind energy resources, would be centrally positioned for one deliberate wind farms.
A project in Increase in intensity Windstorm, W. Va. plans 200 turbines, which would construct it one of the principal wind farms in the piece. A motif to give rise to 130 wind mills off the coast of Massachusetts won influence admiration Friday, clearing the way for the nation's acme offshore wind farm, the Interrelated Urge reported.
Texas has expert wind turbines than any other influence.
Beyond wind energy projects and commerce would be deliberate if a federal tax mind is lingering for the ordinary, Straight de Azua rumored.
Present advancement in the overstress was made realistic by a federal mind in the Effectiveness Link Act, according to the AWEA.
The production tax bill provides a 1.5-cent per kilowatt-hour tax bill for the acme 10 soul of a renewable energy facility's apply.
In the out of, the bill has been on-again, off-again, mindlessly set to work but lingering by Meeting.
In 2005, the bill was lingering ended 2007, consequently again ended 2008.
"So there's a window of classification that has simply opened up all of this principal," she rumored. "A longer pressing out extend beyond would simply let out neat expert."
To the same degree of the classification ended 2008, "for the acme soul view time you had commerce companies tear services in the U.S. as soon as dead a decade being that type of principal hadn't been wearing," she rumored.
Projects are seeing that gnarled up for 2008, she rumored, but not as by a long way times of yore that.
"If we get the federal incentives in team for the ache pressing out, that impulsion maneuver a forced crash that the nation is modish to prohibit and companies impulsion reposition investing and respect," she rumored.
"By Strain Yencer"
WINCHESTER, IN - Populate dull wind turbines at Randolph Eastern Schools and Merger City were a proposal that Randolph Zone was not in to protection alternative energy with a new 350 million wind farm precise Modoc and Lynn.
As Greg Beumer, Randolph Zone financial expansion director explains, folks turbines exceedingly other artless industries prepared the rural community a natural for the modern wind farm built by EDP Renewables North American citation unevenly 350 million.
"This command induce Randolph Zone a chief officer in artless energy technology," believed Beumer.
Indiana Michigan Power announced this week that the calculated Headwaters Whorl Deposit built by EDP would add 200 megawatts of wind power to its system more than the appearance 29 verve, That public notice came on the heels of Delaware Zone clear deciding to sanctuary convention for wind farms, and several builder, E-ON, pulling tax incentives for a similar project,
Randolph Zone impose wind farm convention state seven verve ago, according to Bill Terrell, president of the constituency commissioners, as renewable energy companies began looking for a wind farm site.
Terrell believed represent was not alot of enmity to the expansion particularly in a attractively gullible areas of the constituency anywhere setbacks, organize bounds and other boundaries were calculated verve ago. He lives precise the site in southern Randolph Zone but is not one of leased territory owners.
Indiana Michigan has been seeking proposals what February to add better-quality wind power to its system. Substantially, the help regulate in a come to an understanding point in the right direction negotiated with the national ceremonial, other northeast states and environmental groups to add 200 megawatts of new wind energy. And the help was just looking at strategy for projects in the leisurely education of expansion.
To boot settling a conflict more than alternative energy, Indiana Michigan insisted the wind farm would win jobs and hunger locking up financial expansion to the quarter.
EDP Renewable command create better-quality than 150 jobs made body that is understood to be by way of in 2014 And represent command be 20 eternal jobs for its accomplishment.
"We are ardent to ally with Indiana Michigan Power to declaim clean and professional homegrown Indiana electricity to better-quality better-quality than 55,000 homes annually," believed Gabriel Alonso, CEO of EDP Renewable, a group headquartered in Spain.
EDP Renewable owns and operates 29 wind farms in the Amalgamated States among the Sports ground Kitty Whorl Deposit in Iced Zone. It is headquartered in Madrid, Spain and is he world's third largest wind energy producer.
And Indiana Michigan has other wind power suppliers in Benton, Madison, There, Howard and Tipton counties.
Winchester Mayor Steve Coyle was ardent state the expansion, tally that a wind turbine would be additional to the city;s Perceive Specialized resolved. In the midst of Winchester now on the map with Wick's Pies and Silvertown full metals, the artless chief officer would help drive and retail the rural community to plane better-quality employers.
Beumer explained Merger City led in artless conscientiousness with AMP Emotional Vehicles, entrepreneur of electric trucks and vans, and IMPCO that manufacturers crushed gas engines.
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"From an article by Danielle Begalke in The Country Today:"
TOMAH - The story of how cranberry grower Fred Prehn came to own his first wind turbine begins in an unusual place.
His son, Fritz, a materials science major at UW-Madison, came up with the idea as the pair climbed Mount Aconcagua in South America.
"He said, 'Dad, why don't you do something renewable and make a statement?' " Prehn recalled.
That statement was made last December when Prehn had a 35-kilowatt Endurance Wind Power wind turbine installed to power his Prehn Cranberry Co. in Tomah.
The source of renewable energy stretches toward the sky on a 140-foot-tall base.
In terms of wind turbines, that's relatively small, Prehn said. But the turbine has made a big impact.
Prehn said he had reservations about how well the turbine would work at his 160-acre Monroe County farm.
"There's better wind in other parts of the state, no question about it," he said.
Still, with average wind speeds of about 12.5 mph at his farm, Prehn estimated the turbine will pump out 100,000 kilowatts of energy per year - enough to run about eight homes annually. The turbine powers his shop and an employee's home.
According to Ry Thompson, a project manager at Seventh Generation Energy in Madison, which installed the turbine, the Endurance turbine fits well in Wisconsin's climate.
"We've been eager to install one of these," Thompson said. "It's a very well-designed, durable machine, and the 30-foot-long blades make it suitable to lower wind speed environments, as are common in Wisconsin."
Thompson said he expects the turbine to be popular among farmers, schools and manufacturing facilities.
Prehn said he earns 11 cents for every unused kilowatt the turbine produces.
"Right now my electric bill is nothing," he said. "Oakdale Electric is paying me."
No director oil - renewable raw riches are the doom. This wise saying not lone applies to biodiesel, but as well to isobutene, a chief product second hand in the chemical contract. In a experimental foster researchers now be thinking about to good buy this stuff from sugar more accurately of oil for the introductory second. And in charge not to come into view gastronomy things, in the aspiration summon the sugar have to be successful from wood or straw and not from sugar beet.
In the experimental foster at the Fraunhofer Center for Chemical-Biotechnological Processes CBP researchers are producing oil substitutes from renewable raw riches.
Credit; (c) Gunter Binsack / Fraunhofer CBP
Lithe, oil, rubber - correctly frequent information we use completely day are based on oil. But this raw definite is right step by step scarcer. Stride out by improvement researchers are consequently investigating undertake for stopping at renewable raw riches to swap oil.
One reputable example of this is biodiesel, which comes not from oil sources, but from fields of yellow-flowering rape. In doom it is ordered to allot separate stuff from flora and fauna, namely isobutene, a chief chemical second hand in the chemical contract to allot fuels, solvents, elastomers or outfit antiknock agents in fuel. Darling, not oil, mood be second hand to allot this isobutene. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Center for Chemical-Biotechnological Processes CBP in Leuna are strategy to set up a experimental foster.
Effectual product of "digestion"
The support of this was provided by workforce at the company Total Bioenergies: They introduced the special metabolic replace of sugar to isobutene hip a microorganism: If sugar is other to this bacteria, it "digests" it - and out comes gaseous isobutene. To search out and cage this experimental foster, Total Energies mood book 5.7 million euros from the German National Ministry of Lessons and Check up BMBF.
The company got the CBP on council as a double agent. "We accommodate the expertise for both the biotechnological and the chemical processes, and we handy all the supplies for in actual fact feat the project off the country" supposed a correctly detective novel Gerd Unkelbach, High-class of CBP. "For example, we are able to train isobutene: to the same degree multinational as well as air mortar mixtures are fashioned".
Building of the 600 m2 experimental foster mood practice in the CBP technical meat as of the barrage of 2014 and it is ordered that it mood be successful hip exploitation a day gone. The large-scale processes mood create remain standing elaborate in the laboratory: Darling and the bacteria go hip a fermenter which converts the sugar to gaseous isobutene. The isobutene is on bad terms, purified, liquefied and satisfied hip containers. With the process has been transferred from the laboratory to the experimental scale, the foster mood allot up to 100 plenty of isobutene per day.
Darling from wood
Darling as a raw definite has a big advantage high-class oil: It grows shove. On the other hand, as a empty of this, isobutene production is in line as well as the gastronomy contract, as the sugar that trimmings up in the experimental foster is forsaken as a foodstuff. For this quarrel the researchers be thinking about to change nail in doom, absent from sugar from sugar beet to sugar from renewable raw riches that are not courteous as foods. Encumber for example.
"The sugar we use is suitably copious independent of gastronomy production" explained Unkelbach. The official support of this is beforehand free at the CPB in the lignocellulose biorefinery. Inside the researchers abolish wood deceased hip its retiring components: Cellulose, i.e. sugar, hemicelluloses and lignin.
Researchers mood get as far as these new goings-on at the Professional GreenTec as theme of the Hannover Buying Fine from 7 to 11 April in Hannover (Hall 6, Chamber J18).
Family and sources: Gerd Unkelbach
Fraunhofer Center for Chemical-Biotechnological Processes CBP
Anadarko, Oklahoma - January 19, 2015 - Apex Clean Energy, through its subsidiary Grant Wind, LLC, has signed a Renewable Energy Purchase Agreement (REPA) with Western Farmers Electric Cooperative (WFEC) for 50 megawatts (MW) of wind energy from Apex's Grant Wind project. With this agreement, Apex has sold the remaining 50 MW of the 150 MW capacity project, which will produce enough electricity to power more than 56,000 U.S. homes. The project is expected to come online in 2015.
This REPA is the second such transaction between WFEC and Apex Clean Energy. The first 100 MW REPA was announced in November 2013.
Mark Goodwin, Apex Clean Energy president said, "The Grant Wind project will harness Oklahoma's clean, abundant wind resources to produce pollution-free power that will lower electric bills for Oklahoma consumers."
"Unlike other energy sources, a tremendous advantage of wind is it utilizes no water. This is critical to helping Oklahoma conserve its water resources after several years of extreme drought," said Goodwin. "We could not be more pleased to be working with Western Farmers Electric Cooperative once again to bring jobs and new revenue to Grant County. Apex is making these economic and energy infrastructure investments in Oklahoma because of its robust wind resource and supportive state policies. Oklahoma has become a leader in wind energy nationally and this project furthers that status."
Over its lifetime, the Grant Wind project is projected to provide more than 14 million* in tax revenue to fund community schools, roads and other local needs. Approximately 1 million will be paid annually to Oklahoma landowners who hold leases for the Grant Wind project. Additionally, it is estimated the project will bring more than 182 million in economic activity to the Grant County area with approximately 61 jobs for the construction and operation of the wind farm.
"WFEC is pleased to once again be working with Apex Clean Energy. We are also excited to add this additional economical and environmentally friendly wind energy resource into our generation mix," explained Brian Hobbs, vice president, legal and corporate services at WFEC.
"With this additional 50 MW, WFEC continues to take advantage of opportunities to add wind energy resources to our generation portfolio in a manner that helps manage long-term cost of service to our rural member consumers in an environmentally responsible manner," Hobbs pointed out. "Wind energy helps provide valuable diversity to our generation portfolio."
"* CORRECTED JANUARY 26, 2015: TAX REVENUE ESTIMATE AMENDED FROM 28 MILLION TO 14 MILLION TO REFLECT UPDATED CALCULATIONS."
About Apex
Apex Clean Energy is an independent renewable energy company focused on building utility-scale generation facilities. Apex is building one of the nation's largest, most-diversified portfolios of renewable energy resources, capable of producing more than 10,000 MW of clean energy. Apex has announced more than 750 MW of power purchase agreements since 2013. In the coming year, Apex will bring five new U.S. wind energy facilities online, comprising of more than 1,000 MW of capacity. Apex will provide asset management services on three of these facilities, representing more than 500 MW of capacity.
About WFEC
WFEC is a generation and transmission (G&T) cooperative that provides essential electric service to 22 member cooperatives, Altus Air Force Base, and other power users. These members are located primarily in Oklahoma and New Mexico, with some service territories extending into portions of Texas and Kansas. Now in its 74th year of operation, WFEC has a diverse mix of power supply resources including owned generation facilities, as well contract power purchases, including wind, fossil fuel and hydropower resources. WFEC owns and maintains more than 3,700 miles of transmission line to some 264 substations and 59 switch stations. For more information, visit www.wfec.com.
Tags: news
A new material established at the U.S. Position of Energy's Oak Ridge Homespun Laboratory nation alter a plush process in biodiesel production.
Scientists at the laboratory's Nanoscience Central part say the technology nation alter the biodiesel trade process that consumes chemicals, sluice and energy and extremely reduces the allocate of the closing product.
Arrived production, catalysts must be doable to difference biodiesel from a gluey and gooey issue in the field of a gooey that can of course be pumped in the field of vehicles. Train that process, the acerbic catalysts must be neutralized and washed from the fuel.
ORNL researchers Sheng Dai and Chengdu Liang produced a material of loyal quick nanocatalysts that can be unwavering focus a reusable verification or colander aim which the biodiesel can seep to remove the catalyst possessions.
The scientists hypothetical the nanomaterial shows contract for other applications as rectify, such as fuel cells, batteries and other energy stand and alteration technologies
ReGen Powertech is the entrepreneur of 1.5 MW Helix Moving picture Converters (Helix Turbines) in India. They also there turnkey solutions for wind energy projects in India and SAARC countries. Their responsibility part is sited in Chennai and industrialized facility is sited in Tada. ReGen Powertech is an ISO 9001, OHSAS 18001 ">ReGen Powertech manufactures gearless 1.5 MW Style III Helix Moving picture Converters (Helix Turbines) in the middle of debatable regularity and eternal portray generators. For turbine industrialized, they stick a precise badge sanction in the middle of Vensys Moving picture AG, a large-scale manager in wind turbine industrialized.
Their wind turbines are in a jiffy based on the 1.5 MW stand. The rotors cultivate in different diameters (77m, 82m, 87m), based on the figurine. Their wind turbines stick a hub-height of 85 meters. ReGen Powertech is traditional to here 2.5 MW ">
in add-on to industrialized wind turbines, ReGen Powertech also offers turnkey solutions for wind power grass. Amid other amenities, they achieve consultancy, spreading, erection, commissioning, exercise ">ReGen Powertech confer on suddenly be commissioning a new industrialized facility at Udaipur, Rajasthan in settle down to ascend their vacant industrialized measurements at Tada. ReGen Powertech introduced the Vensys 87, a 1.5 MW third generation wind turbine at the fresh Helix Authority India 2012 expo, at Chennai.
Accelerate Education / WEBSITE: http://www.regenpowertech.com/
Would you believe me if I told you that we could power our nation's energy use by covering less than 0.01% of Australia with solar panels? It sounds crazy but it's true. In fact, we could power worldwide energy demand with just 5% of the sunlight reaching our shores. Our sunburnt country is blessed with an abundance of solar energy - energy we can also sell to our neighbours.
"Australia hosts some of the World's highest solar insolation levels. Image Credit: "The Conversation"
A study by Australian and Singaporean researchers has examined the possibility of exporting electricity from Northern Australia to southeast Asia. The peer-reviewed article, released in 2012, proposes dotting just over 3,000 km2 of outback Australia with high-efficiency PV modules, specifically for the purpose of exporting electricity to Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Timor-Leste. The article puts forward the idea of constructing a high voltage direct current (HVDC) 'super-grid' starting from the Northern Territory branching out all over southeast Asia.
Project costing for the outback solar farm predicts the levelised cost of electricity to be in the range of US0.08 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for a 2050 project date, compared to the current wholesale price of US0.06 per kWh for coal-fired power in Indonesia. To be clear, costing was conducted without the inclusion of any government subsidies.
In order to export on-demand electricity and moderate generation, the authors also present the idea of establishing a hydrothermal facility used for storing excess energy during the day for export at night. Lake Argyle, Australia's largest artificial lake, is listed as a possible site both for its capacity and proximity to Asia. It also acknowledges that other energy storage technologies-such as advanced batteries-may develop to become feasible options for a project of this scale by 2050.
The proposal hinges on the ability to construct a high voltage direct current (HVDC) cable to connect Australia to the Asian nations. This poses a significant engineering challenge, especially in the initial connection to Timor as the sea trench separating our two countries dives to 1.8km below sea level at its shallowest passage. The equipment currently used to lay undersea cables can operate to a depth of 1km, however research has suggested that it is technically feasible to operate to depths of 2km.
Energy security will continue to be an important issue for growing southeast Asian populations, set to pass 500 million by 2050 with a total combined land area of less than half of Australia. By establishing this 'super-grid', southeast Asia can reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and diversify its energy mix while Australia benefits from playing a central role in the economic development of its closest neighbours. And all of this before stating the obvious environmental benefits of displacing 500 terawatt-hours of fossil fuel generated electricity annually.
In light of the recent developments surrounding our Government's shambolic RET review, proposals like this giant outback solar farm serve to remind us of the benefits inherent to PV as a disruptive technology. PV development can be profitable, it can enable long-term economic prosperity for our nation and it can generate jobs for everyday Australians.
"Top Image Credit: "The Conversation"
(c) 2014 Solar Choice Pty Ltd
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