Hydropower

Hydropower worked by catching the energy from falling water and is by far the most heavily used of the renewable energy sources. However many argue if it really is a renewable resource and by definition I would say yes it is a renewable energy source.  This does not mean that I am completely behind hydropower, due to the fact that in most cases you have to destroy surrounding ecosystems to harvest this energy.  Rivers need to be damned up and thus valleys are flooded and people are displaced in some cases. It may be emission free but this energy is not without damage.

In the past Rhode Island has been free of hydropower but things are trying to change.  There is tons of research being done on the potential hydropower in Rhode Island. Mostly people have been looking into converting the hundreds of damns, which are spread through out Rhode Island, into hydroelectric damns.  They wanted to see how much energy could be produced from each of these damns and how much it would cost to convert these old almost pointless damns into something that can be used to produce electricity.  However recently I have spoken with one of the major researchers and it appears that Rhode Island will remain hydropower free. 

I’ve included a video below about some of the negative affects of hydro dams in China.

Solar Energy

There are many different types of solar energy. There are photovoltaic solar panels, which are what people generally think of when they hear solar energy but solar energy is not limited to these.  There is also passive solar (heating a home through letting the sunlight in through windows) and solar water heating systems to name a couple.  There are some examples of solar energy being used in Rhode Island but are limited mostly to smaller privately owned projects.  There is one large-scale solar energy project in Rhode Island owned by Toray Plastics.  The reason there aren’t many solar projects in Rhode Island is simple…there’s not that much sunlight here.  You will typically see more solar project the farther south you so and in dessert environments where there is no shortage of sun.

Toray Plastics put up a 375 kW photovoltaic solar panel installation at their North Kingstown location.  There are two solar fields that add up to 3.5 acres and are made up of 1,650 panels. The panels are mounted on concrete foundations using single-axis trackers.  The single-axis trackers move from west to east and are meant to maximize the sun exposure to each panel, thus allowing them to produce the most electricity.  These made the Toray Plastics solar farm the largest in the state. 

If you would like to know more about this Solar
Farm, you can find more information here. 

Block Island Wind Farm

The Block Island wind farm will be a 30-megawatt wind energy farm being developed by Deepwater Wind, construction is set to start in 2013.  It will be located three miles southeast of Block Island and will be barely visible to the naked eye on a clear day.  It will consist of five turbines and deepwater claims it will generate over 100,000 megawatts hours annually.

          
The wind farm will supply Block Island with the bloke of it electricity.  National grid has agreed to distributive the electricity to the citizens at a set price using a feed-in tariff.

Feed-in Tariffs are policy mechanisms designed to help renewable energy technologies get started.  They do this by providing a contract with the renewable to buy a certain amount of energy at a certain price for a number of years.  This way there is defiantly a market for the product the renewable to producing and there is almost no uncertainty of its success. This will help companies get investors to start the renewable energy technologies going.  An example of this would be the wind turbine in Portsmouth.  If a feed-in tariffs were not in place then the wind turbine would be selling it’s energy at market price which would be to low for the turbine to make back it’s initial investment.

Block Island is currently getting their electricity from a dirty and very expense diesel plant.  This will reduce the pressure on Block Island citizens and give them a clean energy supply.

          
In addition to the wind farm being built, there will also be a transmission line build from the island to the main land to serve as a bidirectional electricity flow.  Excess energy from the wind farm will be transmitted to the main land and in times of low winds energy will be able to be transferred to the island from the mainland.  This will provide Block Island with a steady supply of energy. The project it’s self is positioned to be a demonstration wind farm for future investors in wind energy. 

Portsmouth High School Turbine

The turbine at Portsmouth High School is the largest turbine (1.5 MW) put up in Rhode Island; it is located in the town of Portsmouth and is located next to the high school.  The location of the turbine made it easy to connect with the power grid and is net metered to the grid.

(Net metering is where small energy providers are connected to the grid and allowed to supply excess energy they produce.  Some programs pay for the excess energy, while others provide credits on electric bills.  These small energy providers are small business and homes, mostly a single wind turbine, solar panels or other renewable energy providers.  Rhode Island has a net metering programs that allows business to be connected to the grid but only provides credits on electric bills.) 

Since the completion in March of 2009 the turbine it has produced 8,863,800 kWh, at a price of 20 dollars per kWh.

The people of Portsmouth voted on whether or not the turbine would go up, however the town only told the people what would be good about the turbine. There wasn’t any information given about the possible negative effects to the citizens that live close to the turbine.   Now that the turbine is up there are neighborhoods that are being affected by shadow flicker and the noise the turbine creates.  In some cases it has forced people to change the way they live.  I have included a video taken within on of the homes affected by shadow flicker.

Wind Power

Wind turbines generate wind power.  These wind turbines capture the stored energy in wind and convert it to electricity.  The turbines have large blade that are rotated by the wind as it passes through them.  The turning blade then powers the engine inside the turbine, which then converts the energy into electricity.  It sounds simple, however wind is not a steady resource; it changes by the time of day and year. There are also downsides associated with the turbines; they can not be located near populations of people do to shadow flicker and noise created from the blades turning and the engine humming, and they are a possible threat to wild life (this has yet to be proven).

           
Each turbine operates on what is called a power curve. This power curves is the amount of wind energy it takes to move the blades of the turbine and at what point there will be too much energy in the wind for the blades to safely rotate.  In most cases the turbines are programmed to turn off or but a brake on the blades so that will stop rotating in strong winds, so not to damage them and anything in the surrounding area.

Power Curve for 20 kW (Taiwan Wind Turbine Co.)

           
Turbines should not be located near the general population and especially not near residential areas.  The rotation of the blades cases a shadow affect known as shadow flicker. This shadow flicker gives the effect of a strobe light and in some cases it has been known to cause health problems to people that have had extended exposure.  The blades also cause a noise when the blades are on the downward section of their rotation. In addition to the blades the engines it’s self creates a sort of humming as it generates the electricity. There is hope, as the technology develops the noises created by the turbines are being lessened.

           
Wind energy is not perfect, but if it is used properly and away from people it can be a great resource to supplementing our energy needs. As the technology improves it will take less and less wind to create electricity, with the negative affects being lessen at the same time.  The future will show that wind and other renewables will rise to meet the demand for energy. 

Renewable Energy Siting Partnership

The Renewable Energy Siting Partnership (RESP) is a group of scientist, researchers, and stakeholders working together to meet the goal of “to provide technical expertise about the effects renewable energy may have on the people, wildlife and natural resources of Rhode Island.” The project is looking at all forms of renewable energy and how they can be applied in Rhode Island.  There are many people a crossed the state involved in the project and I am currently involved in the economic proportion of the RESP working on economic models.

           
The project was originally scheduled to take place between September 1^st, 2011-March 31^st, 2012, but has been extended six months, but no extra funding has been supplied.  The project was spilt into three phases; the first was Issue Identification and Assessment (September-November 2011), second was Information Synthesis and Communication (December 2011-January 2012) and third is currently going on which is Develop Final Products (February-September 2012). 

          
 Learn more Here

Biofuels in Rhode Island

Biofuels are a alterative for fossil fuels made from plants.  There are many different types ranging from ethanol made from corn and biomass (commonly agricultural waste) to biodiesel made from used vegetable oil.  Biodiesel runs the same as conventional diesel.  However, there has to be adjustments when using other forms of Biofuels and this is not the only draw back to them.

           
The major issue with biofuels is that the land that they are using to grow the vegetation necessary to produce the fuel is land that is being taken away from food production.  This is could raise food prices, making it harder for the average American family to feed it’s self. This could even lead to people in poor countries going hungry to support the gas guzzling habits of rich countries like the United States. If you were to create fuels using the waste created from the agricultural process there wouldn’t be the problem of raising food prices and there would be less waste going into landfills.  This would solve a lot of problems however, a energy efficient process of doing this is yet to be discovered and it would still not produce enough fuel for the United States.            

           
There is one process that seems promising and that is the production of biodiesel from waste vegetable oil.  This works by a company or person making deals with restaurants in their area to collect their waste oil (restaurants tend to give this oil away for free being otherwise they would have to pay to dispose of it).  Once the oil is collected it is put through a process where it is cleaned and chemically altered. You can learn more about it here.

           
Currently there is a company in Rhode Island producing and distributing biodiesel around the state.  Newport Biodiesel is a local company with over 1,000 restaurant partnerships around New England.  The provide home heating oil from many homes around the state with the help of distribution partners T.H. Malloy & sons  and Guardian Fuels. If you are interested in purchasing biodiesel, contact Newport biodiesel or one of their distribution partners. 

Energy Efficiency

With the prices of fossil fuels going up every year (with the exception of natural gas) it’s clear that something is going on.  Fossil fuels are going to run out, it’s kind of in the name isn’t it? They are made of fossils and let’s face it, making those takes some time.  Here’s the problem though, our society runs off this stuff and renewables just aren’t there yet. There’s no way we are going to supply all of our energy needs off renewables at this point. I really wish it that wasn’t the case, so what are we to do? Buy some time that’s what!

          

Image from Home Energy Efficiency Scheme

 Energy efficiency is the currency in which we’ll pay for renewable energy to catch up.  No one wants to change the way they are living right now. Who really wants to live a simpler life, have smaller cars and a darker house? No one that I know, but if you are able to do all the same things are you used to but use lease energy, why not? It saves money and helps save the earth and that’s the cool thing to do. 

           
Anyway let’s get down to how you can really make some changes to help reduce your energy consumption while still maintaining your lifestyle. There the wicked simple changes like switching out your light bulbs for energy efficient ones, driving slower, having outdoor lights on motion sensors and unplugging electronics when not in use.  Next you could replace old refrigerators for newer more energy efficient ones.  There are often rebates for buying these keep an eye out on this website (Rebates).  Thinking even bigger you could have your home insulated to reduce heating and cooling costs (for rebates and incentives ). Lastly if your not sure what you may have forgot or missed national grid offers free home energy audits (more info here)

RGGI in Rhode Island!

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Imitative (RGGI) is a cap and trade program that is designed to limit the amount of CO2 emissions released by the power sector. It works by setting at cap or limit to CO2 emissions; the cap is set by the state. Once the cap has been set the allowed amount of emissions is split up into permits that are auctioned off to the greenhouse gas emitters in the state. After the initial auction the emitters are allowed to trade permits under regulations based on the RGGI Model rule.

There are nine states involved one of them being Rhode Island. The rest are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont. The money raise by the auction of permits is then place into energy efficiency programs. In Rhode Island about 4 million dollars was placed into national grids energy efficiency programs in 2010. The programs helped more then 150,00 Rhode Islanders save more then 80 million kWh of electricity.

Find more Information at http://www.rggi.org/

Hydrofracking

Rhode Island gets most of it’s electricity from natural gas and heats 46% of it’s homes with it (More RI info). With that much of one source being used I think it would be best for the people of Rhode Island to know where it is coming from. Natural gas historically has been found with other sources of fossil fuels such as oil and oil. In recent years new technology has been discovered to increase and rediscover the amount of sources we can get this fuel from. You may have heard of it, Hydrofracking.

Credit to The Politic

Hydrofracking or Hydraulic fracturing has been making headlines in the media, for some health and environmental hazards it has caused. The new technology that has made this possible is the ability to drill horizontal to the surface. It works by drilling down into the ground into areas where natural gas is being stored in the rocks themselves. Once the holes have been drilled, a fracturing fluid mixed with sand is pumped at high pressed into the holes. This causes fractures to form alone the cannel of the hole. The fluid is then pumped out and the sand remains keeping these fractures open.

One of the major problems with this is that at the moment the gas companies to not have to report what is in this fracturing fluid. Many at many of the sights where the gas in being harvested the fluid are being dumped into large storage faculties that are little more then holes in the ground. The fluid can have any number of chemicals that are harmful to the environment and the health of surrounding communities. Right now New York State is the only state where the companies are being forced to release this information.

If the mystery fluid wasn’t enough for you, there have been some instances of natural gas leaking through the rock and getting into aquifers. This has caused problems with peoples drinking water and in some cases people have been able to literally light their water on fire. This leakage is likely cased by the fractures extending farer then the drilling companies had intended.

I know I’ve said a lot of negatives about natural gas so far but I wanted to make sure that I added that I am not opposed natural gas. In fact if I was going to use any fossil fuel natural gas is first on my list. It is clean burning compared to other fossils fuels and is plentiful in the United States. I just feel that if we are going to keep mining this resource some regulations need to be put in place to make it safer.

Just for fun I’ve added a video that’s good for a laugh.

Fuels in The U.S.

I wanted to continue to provide a little background knowledge introducing the he major types of fuel used in the United State and how they are used.  That way you know where the energy is coming from and what kind of effect their choices have on the environment and the economy.  The major fuels types consisted of petroleum, natural gas, coal, nuclear and renewables (wind, hydro, solar, and biomass).  Even while here in little Rhody we only use petroleum, natural gas and some renewables, it is best for us to know what is going on beyond our boards.

Starting with the dirtiest (in terms of atmospheric pollution) coal.  Coal is used to meet around 50% of the U.S.’s energy demands while it releases 81% of the Carbon Dioxide emissions (http://www.eia.gov/kids/energy.cfm?page=coal_home-basics).  The other major emissions released are sulfur (SOx), mercury (largest sources for both) and Nitrogen (NOx)(second largest source).  There are some good points to coal as well. It is easiest the most plentiful resources we have in the states. With large stores in the Rocky and Appellations mountains.

Petroleum is next on the list making up 94% of the energy used in transportation. We get roughly 50% of this for foreign sources, with our local sources coming mostly from Alaska, and the gulf. Petroleum releases all of the same emissions that coal does just in smaller numbers per unit.

Natural gas is used to produce 19% of the electricity and 76% of the residential and commercial (used for heating).  This has the lowest emissions of any fossil fuel, however retrieving this resource is proving to be more difficult and dirty. I’ll make sure to do a future post all about process of retrieving it call “fracking”.  This is another resource that is local, mostly coming from the appellation region and now the northern Midwest.

Nuclear does release any emissions and can be produced in the United States, however it has some major setbacks as many of you know.   On the good side it can produce a large quantity of energy over a small area and once up and running the costs are low.  Although it does produce a large amount of hazardous waste that no one has found a way of dealing with yet.  This waste is not only an environmental hazard but also a health and national security hazard.

Where renewables do not release any emissions (with the exception of biomass). However, these technologies take up large areas to produce relatively small amounts of energy.  They are also extremely expense to start and can disturb human life, ranging from a simple eye sore to shadow flicker effecting your health (can cause headaches) or forcing a major change in the way you live you life. 

Where is our energy used/come from?

Above is a chart that shows what the sources of energy and in what sector they are being used.  This is for the United States as a whole, so the percentages and sources will be different for Rhode Island.  I just felt it was a good idea to introduce you to what the whole country is up to before going into detail about Rhode Island.  Here in Rhode Island our industry tends to be smaller, this reduces the amount of electric power needed for the state and increases the percentage of the energy going to residential.  

            

Total Energy Usage

 The sources of energy that are being used in Rhode Island are also different.  In the northeast coal is very rarely used to produce electric power, and in Rhode Island the only large scale electric generating plants (learn more about energy in RI here) are natural gas powered.  There is only one plant in Rhode Island and it is located on Manchester St. in Providence.  It is owned by Dominion and the electricity is disturbed by National grid (you can learn more about this plant here).  In Rhode Island power generators are not allowed to own both the generation facilities and the distribution lines. This allows for a more stable pricing market.

         

There are many different topics to talk go into that have to do with our wide use of natural gas in the state.  One of them is the use of natural gas in the state (and other factors), it has very low greenhouse emissions compared to states in other parts of the country.  The state has taken steps toward lowering those emissions even farer by taking part in RGGI (Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative). This is a cap and trade program that I will go farer into in it's own post since it is a huge player in Rhode Island's energy sector.  Another is the question of is does natural gas really release lease greenhouse gases when you look at its life cycle. This brings up the much heated debate of hydrofracking.  There are so many topics to go into I'm looking forward into really getting in to as much detail as I can and providing information to anyone who wants it.  I can't wait!