Four Storms in Quick Succession Expose the Flaws in New York City’s Electrical System - WNYC

Good coverage of the challenges utilities face in the future thanks to climate change:

Four Storms in Quick Succession Expose the Flaws in New York City’s Electrical System - WNYC

Aldermen approve Emanuel's energy switch to Integrys from ComEd

By Julie Wernau, Chicago Tribune

December 13, 2012

Chicagoans could find out as soon as Thursday exactly how much they will pay for electricity under a plan approved Wednesday that switches about 1 million people to Integrys Energy Services.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel received unanimous City Council approval Wednesday to negotiate most details of the transaction.

Michael Negron, deputy chief of policy and strategic planning for the Emanuel administration, said Integrys, a sister company to Peoples Gas, is carefully timing its bulk electricity purchase in order to strike a good deal for Chicago. It could happen Thursday.

"Typically in this industry, when you lock down a rate it's for minutes or hours," he said. "We want to be in a position to get us the best possible prices."

The city hopes to be a model for other communities because its contract calls for consumer protections and elimination of power produced by burning coal.

"For protecting our residents and protecting our environment, we have taken, I think, a significant step, and one that's a model that other cities will look at," Emanuel said.

Integrys must deliver prices at or below what residents would have paid Commonwealth Edison through 2015 and cannot charge early termination fees to consumers who decide to seek alternative suppliers or deny service as a result of their credit history. Consumers can also opt out.

Emanuel has said consumers could see savings of about $150 per household through May 2015.

David Kolata, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board, a Chicago-based consumer advocate, applauded the deal, which he said had "consumer protections that are stronger than we've seen in any other community."

ComEd, which will deliver electricity purchased by Integrys, will still be responsible for billing and fixing power outages.

An earlier plan to siphon a portion of consumer savings to invest in rooftop solar panels and energy efficiency upgrades in Chicago buildings didn't get out the door. Some critics said the plan would be akin to a hidden tax.

Mark Pruitt, of the Delta Institute, a consultant to the city on the issue, said Integrys is being encouraged to make investments in energy efficiency improvements as it hedges its Chicago portfolio.

Just as Integrys can purchase megawatts from power plants to increase its electricity supply, it can also fulfill its obligations by purchasing so-called negawatts, which decrease demand for power. For instance, rather than buying power from a natural gas plant, Integrys can pay a large manufacturer to power down at certain times to decrease electricity demand.

"The innovation can still continue as the contract begins," said Jack Darin, executive director of Sierra Club's Illinois chapter and a member of the advisory committee for the electricity deal.

Chicago is the largest city in the country eligible to adopt such a plan under state laws. Only Ohio and Illinois laws allow for such efforts, according to city officials. Hundreds of suburbs have adopted the electricity arrangement in recent years.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-1213-chicago-aggregation--2-20121213,0,4748379.story

After Hurricane, Some Begin To Question Wisdom of Rockaway Pipeline Project

Monday, December 03, 2012  | by Sarah Crean

Gotham Gazette

NEW YORK — Now that the construction of a new chain of natural gas pipelines running from the Rockaway peninsula to Brooklyn has been delayed following Superstorm Sandy, residents and elected officials are beginning to question whether the project is safe to build at all.

The exceedingly complex project would be constructed in separate phases — under the regulation of federal, state and local authorities — adjacent to coastal communities that were among the hardest hit during the storm.

U.S. Rep. Yvette Clarke, who represents central Brooklyn, told Gotham Gazette in an emailed statement that the destruction caused by Sandy had raised concerns among residents who live near the proposed gas pipeline project.

"Our need for independent energy cannot precede the safety of our community and environment," she said.

State Sen. Joseph Addabbo, whose new district includes the Rockaways, said he would organize a town hall meeting where residents could ask their questions about the project.

"Doing this simultaneously with Sandy becomes a daunting task," he said of the project. "People are trying to get their lives back."

He added that residents have come to him with some hard questions about the project. “This is a major endeavor," he continued. "What is the protection from a gas leak? What are the precautions? What is the time frame?”

National Grid spokeswoman Karen Young told Gotham Gazette that the storm had not affected phase one of the project — the utility’s plans to construct two gas pipelines underneath Jamaica Bay’s Rockaway Inlet. She added that they were "still meeting with all of the officials and agencies to determine the best time.”

A Nov. 21 project report filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by Oklahoma-based Williams Companies, which is also constructing sections of the pipeline, stated: “Construction originally planned for December 2012 is currently scheduled to begin in February 2013.”

Williams spokesman Chris Stockton said on Friday: “We’re still moving forward with our project. The hurricane has not changed our plans, nor has it changed the need for this project and the gas for the city." But, referring to the fact that Williams’ portion of the project had not yet received the necessary approvals, he added that there was "still a long way to go.”

Asked whether additional precautions needed to be taken during pipeline construction, Young said: “We had a robust plan in place, and the measures that we are planning to implement are above and beyond industry standards”.

She added that the pipeline had been designed to withstand flooding, would be buried underneath the seabed of Jamaica Bay and regularly monitored and inspected, especially during severe weather events.

Young stated that National Grid felt it had designed a "very safe” pipeline. She noted that the pipeline would have isolation valves that could be activated remotely in the event of an emergency.

The Rockaway pipeline is a key part of the energy initiatives outlined in PlaNYC, Mayor Bloomberg’s far-reaching sustainability plan.

The mayor’s office did not respond to questions regarding whether construction or ongoing maintenance of the Rockaway pipeline would need to be re-thought in light of the area’s vulnerability to future catastrophic storms.

SANDY'S ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

A full month after Sandy made landfall, the profound impact of the storm on both the residents and natural environment of the Rockaways is grimly evident.

Major arteries in the Rockaways were jammed with emergency and utility trucks on Saturday, and construction on damaged homes was visible throughout. In Breezy Point, the community closest to where pipeline construction will begin shortly, it was possible to see homes that had been torn off their foundations, and a car that had been incinerated almost beyond recognition by the fires that engulfed the area.

Much of the construction on the pipeline will take place in Gateway National Recreation Area, a 26,000-acre National Park, which includes ocean-facing Jacob Riis Park and the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. The Bay’s wildlife refuge is the only such refuge in the National Park System, according to the New York Harbor Conservancy.

Other sections of the park — which will eventually be adjacent to pipeline construction — are now serving as sites for hurricane clean-up and reconstruction efforts.

“The Bay has taken a big hit,” said Dan Mundy, vice-president of Jamaica Bay Eco-Watchers. He added that “tremendous amounts” of fuel oil and debris had entered Jamaica Bay as a result of the storm, and that two freshwater ponds had breached “in a very dramatic fashion." Mundy explained that tides had flushed out much of the oil, but he added that the post-storm period was a “critical time for mitigation”.

Just across the Bay, the scope of the tragedy of the storm is visible in the parking lots of Jacob Riis Park, which have been turned into a massive dumping ground for the remains of destroyed homes and other refuse. From the dumping ground, one can see the fences and other beach infrastructure torn apart by the reported 14-foot coastal storm surge that entered the area on the night of Oct. 29.

Because of its vulnerable position, areas around the Rockaway peninsula are now considered possible locations for storm barriers.

A key section of the Rockaway pipeline, to be constructed by Williams, will run directly underneath Jacob Riis Park, delivering gas from an off-shore pipeline to National Grid’s new mains underneath Jamaica Bay. The 10,000-mile Transco natural gas pipeline, which runs parallel to the Rockaway coast, is managed by Williams.

In a later phase of construction, National Grid will connect its cross-Bay lines to customers in Brooklyn and Queens, via a new gas meter and regulating station to be housed within a historic hangar at Floyd Bennett Field, and by eventually linking with an existing gas main on Flatbush Avenue.

The 60,000-square-foot meter station will be constructed by Williams. Parking lots behind the hangars at Floyd Bennett Field are currently a massive staging area for FEMA, the Red Cross, construction companies and scores of fuel tanker trucks.

The National Grid portion of the Rockaway pipeline project has been approved by the city and did not require a public review process or full-scale environmental review. Williams’ off-shore pipeline and meter station proposal, however, is still working its way through a federal environmental review process.

Chris Stockton said that Williams planned to submit a final proposal to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by late 2012 or early 2013. He said that based on the company’s experience with previous applications to FERC, the agency’s review of the proposal could take another eight months.

President Obama signed legislation Nov. 27 bringing the Rockaway pipeline project one step closer to reality. The New York City Natural Gas Enhancement Act authorizes the National Park Service to permit the pipeline and related infrastructure within the boundaries of Gateway National Recreation Area.

In a statement on the signing, Mayor Bloomberg said: “Given the destruction of Hurricane Sandy, this law could not come at a more critical time for New York City. This pipeline will help us build a stable, clean-energy future for New Yorkers and will ensure the reliability of the City’s future energy needs.” The mayor specifically thanked the bill’s sponsors, Sen. Charles Schumer and Congressmen Michael Grimm of Brooklyn and Staten Island, and Gregory Meeks of Queens.

ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS

The Rockaway pipeline project has spurred protests from some local residents and environmental groups, who have raised questions about possible impacts to coastal marine life, and whether a gas pipeline is an appropriate use for an urban park. The city’s commitment to natural gas — a fossil fuel — as an ongoing energy source has also proved controversial.

“This bill puts a pipeline under a popular beach and introduces private industrial use of a federal park, and it does so with no public input,” said Karen Orlando, a local resident and Floyd Bennett Garden Association member.

Local groups like Jamaica Bay Eco-Watchers are watching the federal review process closely, and believe that they may be able to impact decisions that are yet to be made. They also say that the Rockaway Pipeline speaks to public policy questions relevant to the entire city.

Mundy argued that if the Williams section of the pipeline project is to go forward, there must be a commitment to off-set some of the ecological damage that he said he believes will inevitably be inflicted by construction of a 2.79-mile pipeline on the ocean floor.

Another federal agency has raised questions similar to Mundy’s. In October, the Army Corps of Engineers wrote to FERC, requesting that Williams provide more specifics on the ocean floor trenching and dredging techniques it will use, and how the aquatic ecosystem off the Rockaways could be affected.

Stockton said that questions on the project raised by the Army Corps and other agencies would be addressed in the company’s final proposal to FERC.

Mundy said he believes that any possible damage to the ocean floor habitat should be offset by a focus on restoring Jamaica Bay’s saltwater marshes.

Marshes throughout the city have attracted new attention because they can help to blunt the impact of coastal storm surges. “The wetlands will be a big topic of discussion,” said Mundy. He added that not only are they a form of “soft infrastructure”, but they also help to absorb carbon from the atmosphere.

At the same time, Orlando argued that the placement of what she describes as “industrial infrastructure” within Floyd Bennett Field, “a couple hundred of feet from a community garden used by four to five-hundred members and their families” has broader implications for both private use of public space and government transparency.

She said the city "couldn’t do that in Prospect Park or Central Park.”

http://www.gothamgazette.com/index.php/topics/environment/2167-after-hurricane-some-begin-to-question-wisdom-of-rockaway-pipeline-project

The cause of MIT’s major power loss

By John A. Hawkinson

STAFF REPORTER

the Tech

December 4, 2012

What actually happened when MIT and much of Cambridge lost power last Thursday night? Why didn’t MIT’s 20 megawatt cogeneration turbine power the campus like a lighthouse in a sea of Cantabrigian darkness? What was the root cause of the failure?

MIT’s Central Utilities Plant, in Building 42, has a gas turbine that can supply up to about 22 megawatts of electrical power to most of MIT’s campus south of Albany St. But the campus regularly draws 25 MW or more, so the cogen turbine cannot supply it all — the balance comes from NSTAR, the local utility.

While the cogen plant provides a measure of redundancy, that’s not its primary purpose. It exists to save energy and improve efficiency by generating heat and electrical power simultaneously.

(The plant is called cogeneration because it produces both electricity and steam. The plant burns fuel, usually natural gas, which mixes with air under compression and spins the gas turbine to produce electricity. The same hot gases are used to boil water and produce steam, which is used to both heat the campus and to run chillers that provide cooling.)

Outage begins

At 4:24 p.m. on Nov. 29, an automated NSTAR relay detected a disturbance and took a 115 kilovolt underground transmission line out of service, affecting 19,000 customers, according to NSTAR’s early diagnosis. NSTAR spokesman Michael Durand said that NSTAR’s analysis was preliminary and that a more detailed investigation was ongoing.

The 115 kV line was one of two parallel lines that would normally back up each other. But maintenance crews were working on the other line, so it was unavailable.

That work is part of NSTAR’s “Cambridge Cooling Line Reliability Project,”. The transmission lines connect NSTAR’s Alewife East and Putnam Stations, and serve all of Cambridge east of Harvard Square, according to NSTAR filings with the city. The work is expected to increase the lines’ load capacity by 20–40 percent. The lines date from 1988 and each consists of three copper cables in an 8 5/8" steel pipe surrounded by dielectric fluid.

Large parts of Cambridge lost power. It affected East Cambridge, Kendall Square, and MIT, as well as many sections along Massachusetts Avenue up to Harvard.

MIT was using 27 MW: 22 MW from cogen, and 5 MW from NSTAR. The cogen turbine couldn’t supply the extra load, so it shut down automatically, as designed. MIT was without power, just like much of Cambridge.

In buildings throughout the campus, generators start automatically. They power emergency lighting, elevators, life-safety equipment, critical research equipment, etc. In some buildings, computer network equipment is on emergency power.

Within the main group, this emergency power comes from a single large generator located at the Central Utilities Plant. But newer buildings are required to have their own generators, so scores of generators started all around campus. The emergency power circuits are connected to automatic transfer switches that switch them to the generator power. Generators are designed to start within a few seconds of an outage.

Central Utilities Plant

At the plant, a number of things have to happen after power fails before the turbine can start generating electricity again. The process takes hours. The first order of business is to start up a steam boiler and restore steam pressure, according to Randall D. Preston, director of utilities for Facilities.

Meanwhile, NSTAR was trying to restore power. Within 20 minutes, NSTAR was able to restore power to 5,500 customers (29 percent of those affected), using remote switching technology and powering them from other parts of the grid, Durand said. For instance, the traffic signal at Main and Vassar was running, but signals on Mass. Ave. were not. Everybody else, including MIT, would have to wait.

After steam is available, MIT’s attention can turn to the cogeneration turbine. MIT can operate the turbine in “island” mode, disconnected from NSTAR’s grid. Preston said that MIT will try to do this unless NSTAR has estimated the outage will be short — but even then they’ll prepare for the possibility of no NSTAR power. MIT does not require NSTAR’s permission to operate in island mode.

A number of services need to function before the gas turbine can operate, Preston said. They include compressed air, cooling water, and exhaust ventilation. Without those, the turbine cannot run. And, of course they need to disconnect from NSTAR to avoid trying to power all of Cambridge.

Plant operators also need to clear any alarms that the turbine control system might report. They need to make sure that neither the turbine nor any other critical component was damaged when the power failed.

The best case is “probably an hour,” Preston said, “but realistically it takes one to two hours.”

Once they’re ready to go, they start by disconnecting almost all the circuits that feed the campus from the plant, so that the turbine can start with a known low load. They then start the turbine.

Then, they slowly add campus circuits to the turbine to control its load and warm up the heat recovery steam generator that captures the heat from the turbine’s exhaust.

“We were at the point of pushing the start button,” Preston said, when NSTAR restored power.

But because MIT is such a large customer, NSTAR treats it carefully, and wants to bring back large loads slowly.

“NSTAR asked us to wait 15 minutes,” Preston said. And the 15 minutes dragged on to 20 minutes. But Facilities used that time to reconnect the campus circuits that they had disconnected in preparation for starting the cogeneration turbine. Meanwhile, the traffic signal at 77 Mass. Ave. was back on.

What if NSTAR hadn’t come back? Preston said that Facilities would have to leave some portions of the campus without power until they could get unnecessary loads removed from the sections that were powered up first.

“In general, we would power up the campus circuits serving major research buildings and critical facilities first, and then go from there,” Preston said.

NSTAR’s effort

Why did it take NSTAR two hours? Durand said the time taken is actually “expected and normal to get that kind of transmission line back in service given the detailed analysis and numerous restoration steps involved.” NSTAR was “all hands on deck,” including every available management and field crew, he said.

NSTAR had to test the 115 kV line to determine if there was a fault in it. Much of the time is spent eliminating possibilities and making sure that the situation is “what we believe it is,” Durand said.

NSTAR’s preliminary determination was that the relay was operating in error, and there was no damage to the line. “The relay sensed something that didn’t happen,” Durand said.

After concluding that the relay had misoperated, it had to be removed from service.

Durand said Friday that the parallel 115 kV transmission line which had been out of service for maintenance was expected to be back in service on Saturday. No NSTAR workers were injured in either the outage or the response.

http://tech.mit.edu/V132/N58/power.html

Building energy use still takes big part

By Du Juan ( chinadaily.com.cn )

Updated: 2012-12-03

The building construction sector still plays a big role in China's energy consumption mixture as the country continues to make efforts to achieve its urbanization target, said a government official on Monday.

"The energy issues are hard to solve during the country's urbanization process," said Han Aixin, deputy director-general of the buildings department for science and technology and energy saving at the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development during the 2012 China Planning Network Annual Conference.

According to figures from the ministry, at present, building energy consumption accounts for about one-third of the total social energy consumption in the country. The other two big consumers are industry and transportation.

He said the ubiquitos energy network - a network combining energy supply, information communication and electricity trading - will be the way to solve urban energy problems.

ENN Group, a private Hong Kong-listed Chinese energy company, has established an eco-community in Qingdao, Shandong province, applying the ubiquitous energy network.

"The network helps community residents adjust their energy consuming behavior to save energy day by day," said Gan Yongqing, vice-chairman of ENN. "The network can also be applied in the industrial sectors."

However, Han said more should be done to calculate experiences with the network.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/m/qingdao/2012-12/03/content_15980403.htm

The missing element of the Renewable Energy study

12.03.12

Tim Redmond

San Francisco Bay Guardian

Since San Francisco's Local Agency Formation Commission is meeting Dec. 7 to talk about renewable energy, I went and read the 100-page report of the Mayor's Task Force on Renewable Energy, which offers 39 different suggestions for meeting the goal of 100 renewable electricity in the city by 2020.

That's a pretty ambitious goal. The guy who set it, Gavin Newsom, loved lofty, ambitious projects, particularly when he was never going to be the one to carry them out. So too here: Newsom announced the city's goal in 2010, shortly before he left for the Lieutenant Governor's Office. Ed Le convened the task force earlier this year, and the members, most of whom have legitimate qualifications for the job, got right to work.

The most important conclusion of the report: Yes, it's financially and technologically feasible to generate all of San Francisco's electricity from reneweable sources, and we can get their in a short eight years. One key element: More distributed generation -- that is, the city needs to create financial and regulatory incentives for people to put solar panels on their roofs. In San Francisco, with sun much of the year (and small houses), a rooftop solar installation can pretty much power the average single-family home and can pick up a fair share of the load of the typical four-unit building.

But while the report gives a shout-out to CleanPowerSF, which will soon be offering 100 percent renewable energy service (for a slightly higher price), and talks about the need for the city to build its own renewable generation facilities, which have to be a part of the plan. But it has a glaring omission -- it doesn't once mention public power.

Why is that an omission? Because San Francisco is never getting to 100 percent renewables while Pacific Gas & Electric Co. still controls the grid.

Right now, with today's technology, you can't get close to 100 percent without a significant amount of distributed generation. Lots and lots of people have to generate their own power -- at which point, they no longer need PG&E (except that, by law, the grid is the default storage battery, but that's going to change soon, too). In simple terms, distributed generation puts private utilities out of business. So they won't ever go for it, and will -- quietly, behind the scenes -- so everything possible to keep if from happening.

Likewise demand management, something the Renewable Energy Task Force discusses at length. San Francisco already gets about 40 percent of its electricity from the Hetch Hethcy hydro project; If the city could reduce its energy use by 20 percent, that's 20 percent we don't have to generate. And reducing use is way cheaper than building new generation facilities.

But why would PG&E want to sell less electricity? There are all sorts of state laws mandating efficiency, but no PG&E CEO is going to make that a big push; it costs the company money. A PG&E that sells 20 percent less electricity is a smaller PG&E, with smaller staff, smaller revenue, and smaller profits. 

That's why the only way the key components of distributed generation and demand management are ever going to work is if San Francisco gets rid of PG&E and sets up a municipal system. Around the country, the munis are leading the way in renewables, because they have no stockholders to satisfy.

At least that ought to be part of the report, no?

http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2012/12/03/missing-element-renewable-energy-study

Before Hurricane Sandy, No Advocate For New York's Utility Ratepayers

Matt Sledge

Huffington Post

Posted: 11/28/2012

NEW YORK -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo launched an investigation two weeks ago into utility companies' performance before and after Hurricane Sandy left millions of New Yorkers powerless -- some for weeks.

But one issue that could be crucial to Cuomo's special commission review is why there is no independent voice in New York state to stand up for electricity ratepayers before storms hit.

Last March, Cuomo rolled the state's independent Consumer Protection Board's Utility Intervention Unit into the Department of State. The unit now has a bare-bones staff with no authority to sue on behalf of ordinary customers. The governor's administration also has yet to issue a contract for independent utility watchdog and non-profit the Public Utility Law Project -- despite appropriations by the state legislature.

Across the Hudson, even though its population is a fraction of New York state's, New Jersey has a Division of Rate Counsel with dozens of employees on guard against jacked-up rates and lowballed tree-trimming budgets. It also can take utilities to court if it needs to.

"Right now as it stands, we have a diminished consumer protection representation," said New York Assembly Energy Committee Chair Kevin Cahill. "It's a serious, serious issue."

Utilities are claiming a staggering $1.5 billion in damages from Hurricane Sandy. If companies like Con Edison argue -- as they likely will -- that consumers should be forced to pay for most of that, there is no one with the technical knowledge necessary to find out what is warranted and what is not.

The lack of consumer protection also means that before Sandy, nobody was looking into whether ConEd was spending enough on maintenance and infrastructure investments, aside from the state regulator, the Public Service Commission.

New York's Utility Intervention Unit has just two employees, according to Cahill. And at a hearing earlier this year, when he asked about its jurisdiction since it had been rolled into the Department of State, he said, nobody seemed to know.

The governor's office and the Utility Intervention Unit did not respond to requests for comment.

Gerald Norlander, the executive director of PULP, said the state now appears to belatedly be moving to approve his outfit's contract. But he also sees a need for a strengthened, politically independent state utility intervention body.

"Under Pataki and Spitzer and Paterson and Cuomo -- it's not just Cuomo -- it's withered for 15 years," Norlander said of the unit. "They don't have the structural power and the independence they should have."

Having a voice independent from the regulator is critical, said Paul Flanagan, the litigation manager for the comparatively well-staffed and well-defined Division of Rate Counsel in New Jersey.

"We tend to be more the adversaries of the utilities, more so than the (regulator's) staff," he said.

An independent advocate can look out for customers before a disaster like Sandy strikes. It was the Division of Rate Counsel that filed a request in July with New Jersey's Board of Public Utilities to require one of the state's leading utilities, Jersey Central Power & Light, to explain how it was spending its storm mitigation money.

"As the utilities come in, which some of them already have and some of them will, to look for monies to pay for the storm … we look at the cost of things in particular, so we want to see whether the ratepayers are getting value for the money that is spent," said Flanagan.

Many other states have a similar ratepayers' advocate, usually funded by the utilities themselves in a way that amounts to pennies per consumer per year. There is even a National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates. But New York is missing out.

"One of the problems with the rate-making structure in New York is that utilities can basically submit the bill for their response to storm damage, and it's pretty much passed through to the consumer," said Cahill.

But in many cases, he argued, utilities should have been spending more before the storm, to make outages less likely and shorter. Instead, he said, they have cut back on tree-trimming that can prevent downed lines, upgrading infrastructure, and hiring the lineworkers necessary to keep systems in shape.

"The question from a consumer representation standpoint at the current moment is, should the ratepayers in any way, shape, or form, be saddled with the costs of recovery where those costs could have been avoided with proper preparation?" he asked. "My answer to that is 'no'."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/28/hurricane-sandy-utility-ratepayers_n_2207285.html

New York tells Con Ed to prepare in case Indian Point shuts

Wed Nov 28, 2012 3:02pm EST

* New York governor wants Indian Point shut

* Entergy wants to run reactors for 20 more years

* Indian Point current licenses expire in 2013, 2015

By Scott DiSavino

Nov 28 (Reuters) - New York energy regulators told power companies in New York City to develop plans to keep the lights on in the Big Apple in case the giant Indian Point nuclear power plant, which supplies about a quarter of the city's electricity, is forced to shut down.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo wants the two reactors at Indian Point shut when their operating licenses expire in 2013 and 2015 in part because the nuclear plant is located in the New York metropolitan area, home to some 19 million people.

The governor has said even the most unlikely possibility of an accident is too much in the heavily populated area.

U.S. power company Entergy Corp, which owns Indian Point, says, however, the plant is safe, and the company is seeking to extend the reactors' licenses for another 20 years.

The 2,063-megawatt (MW) Indian Point plant is about 40 miles (60 km) north of Manhattan along the Hudson River.

"Entergy and its employees continuously demonstrate the plants are safely operated, and is committed to safely operating this important facility for many more years to come," Entergy spokesman Jerry Nappi told Reuters Wednesday in an email.

On Tuesday, the state's energy regulator, New York Public Service Commission (NYPSC), directed New York City power company Consolidated Edison Inc to work with the New York Power Authority (NYPA) to develop a contingency plan to address the needs that would arise in the event Indian Point shuts down.

NYPA is a state-owned power generator that supplies electricity to government customers in New York City, including schools, hospitals, government buildings, subways and commuter trains.

"We will comply with the Commission's directive to work with the New York Power Authority to develop a contingency plan addressing the needs that would arise in the event of an Indian Point shutdown," Con Edison told Reuters in an emailed statement.

A shutdown of Indian Point, without sufficient alternatives, would threaten electric system reliability and potentially raise electric market prices, Con Ed said.

Several energy companies have already proposed power plants and transmission lines that could partially replace Indian Point, including units of NRG Energy Inc, Brookfield Asset Management Inc, BP Plc, Calpine Corp , GenOn Energy Inc and Iberdrola SA.

ENTERGY SEEKS NEW LICENSES

To keep the reactors running over the next couple of decades, Entergy filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in 2007 to renew the Indian Point licenses.

A decision by the NRC commissioners on the licenses might not happen for years, as agency judges are still holding hearings on challenges to the plant's continued operation.

Entergy, however, can continue to operate the reactors even after their licenses expire so long as the federal renewal process is ongoing.

The three judges at the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB), which serves as the agency's judicial arm, started evidentiary hearings near the plant in October to consider 10 complaints raised by New York State and two public interest groups, Hudson River Sloop Clearwater Inc and Riverkeeper Inc.

The NRC has scheduled several days of hearings through at least mid-December. On Wednesday, the NRC said it did not know when, or if, a second round of hearings would be scheduled and that a decision on the challenges would likely come months after the hearings are done.

SANDY PROMPTS ACTION

The contingency plan for Indian Point was one of Governor Cuomo's Energy Highway Blueprint proposals issued by a task force in October.

Cuomo proposed the Energy Highway plan in January to modernize the state's energy infrastructure.

The state's Public Service Commission said it decided to move forward this week on three proposals in the Energy Highway Blueprint, including the Indian Point proposal, because of Superstorm Sandy.

Sandy caused billions of dollars of damage and left millions of New Yorkers in the dark - some for more than two weeks - after striking the U.S. East Coast in late October.

The other Blueprint recommendations the Public Service Commission said it has decided move forward on now are proposals to build over 1,000 MW of new transmission capacity between upstate New York and New York City, at an estimated cost of $1 billion, and proposals to expand the state's use of natural gas by residential and business customers.

One megawatt can power about 1,000 homes in New York.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/28/utilities-entergy-indianpoint-idUSL1E8MS77020121128

Chicago sets brisk timeline for electric aggregation deal

By Julie WernauChicago Tribune

November 8, 2012

The City of Chicago laid out a timeline Thursday for how it intends to quickly complete a deal that would move approximately 950,000 Chicagoans to a new electricity supplier.

The timing of the deal is important because Chicagoans stand to save the most money over Commonwealth Edison's rate between now and June 2013, when ComEd's prices are expected to drop because pricey contracts they entered into years ago will expire. The timeline has Chicagoans moving to the new supplier in February 2013.

In Tuesday's election, Chicago voters passed a proposal to allow the city to negotiate for better electricity prices on behalf of residential customers and small businesses. The city is one of hundreds of Illinois communities participating in so-called electricity aggregation and is by far the largest city in the nation to attempt such a large bulk purchase for electricity.

Michael Negron, deputy chief of policy and strategic planning for the mayor's office, said electricity suppliers have shown great interest in snagging Chicago's service. Nearly 100 people packed a conference Monday for the city's "request for qualifications" process. The bidders ranged from multi-billion corporations to smaller providers from all over the country, he said. Industry analysts say the deal could be worth hundreds of millions of dollar to the winning supplier or suppliers.

The timeline is as follows:

Nov. 14: Municipal aggregation ordinance introduced as substitute ordinance in city finance committee

Nov. 21: Bidder responses to request for qualifications due

Nov. 26 - Dec. 11: Finance committee will conduct two public hearings on aggregation ordinance

Early December: City and Delta Institute convene stakeholder process for identifying options for a portion of savings to go toward increased energy efficiency or the development of cleaner, renewable energy sources.

Dec. 5: Qualified pool of energy providers announced

Dec. 6: Issuance of request for pricing; responses due within days. The sole selection criteria at this point will be price because the RFQ phase will have screened out bidders based on their capacity, financial stability, customer service and ability to deliver cleaner energy. 

Dec. 12: City Council considers aggregation ordinance

Mid/Late-December: Opt-out letters are sent to approximately 1 million customers

Early January: Opt-out data processed and final customer list prepared. 

February: Participating Chicago customers are switched over the course of the month

March: All Chicago ratepayers who have not opted out are under the new supplier. City will announce its plan for investment of savings into cleaner energy or improved energy efficiency.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-chicago-sets-brisk-timeline-for-electric-aggregation-deal-20121108,0,1338243.story

City of Chicago to move swiftly with aggregation to help customers capitalize on energy savings

City of Chicago to move swiftly with aggregation to help customers capitalize on energy savings

U.S. Panel to Hear Opponents of Indian Point Nuclear Plant

By MATTHEW L. WALD

New York Times

October 11, 2012

The Indian Point nuclear plant is going on trial.

On Monday, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission will open a hearing to determine whether opponents, among them the Cuomo administration, have valid arguments against a 20-year extension of operating licenses for the Westchester County site’s reactors.

Three administrative law judges from the commission will take up an unusually long list of issues at the hearing, which will take place at a hotel in Tarrytown, N.Y., on 12 days in October and December.

In granting license extensions for reactors around the country, 70 to date, the commission has usually agreed to hear arguments on only a few technical issues. But in the case of Indian Point, the judges will hear at least 14.

Some of the issues from parties in the case are mechanical. Has Entergy, the plant’s owner, properly accounted for the possibility of corrosion in old pipes? What is the condition of the plant’s electrical cables, some of which are submerged in water and cannot be easily inspected? Has the plant been adequately monitoring buried pipes, some of which have already leaked, that carry radioactive materials?

Others are more slippery, like calculating the potential human costs of a major release of radioactive materials from the plant, in Buchanan, about 35 miles north of Midtown Manhattan.

James Steets, a spokesman for Entergy, suggested that the plant’s opponents would try “to throw as much mud against the wall as they can and hope some of it sticks.”

“But by the same token,” Mr. Steets added, “it’s a process that allows for those who seriously have concerns to raise issues in a very public process.”

Either way, the tug of war over Indian Point’s future will probably go on for years. Ordinarily, the commission’s decisions on extending licenses take two and a half years. But Indian Point’s renewal application is now more than five years old, and the hearings have not even started.

The 40-year licenses of the plant’s two reactors are set to expire in September 2013 and December 2015. But under agency rules, the licenses will remain in effect until the commission makes a final ruling.

Since his days as the New York State attorney general, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, has been arguing that the plant should be closed — that the reactors have safety problems and are vulnerable to terrorism. He has cited their proximity to nine million people in the New York metropolitan region.

The current attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, whose office represents the state in the hearings, has been slightly less emphatic.

“Whatever it is that the state determines to do, I’m the state’s lawyer and I will defend that,” Mr. Schneiderman, a Democrat, said last summer in an interview with WMHT, a public television station in Albany. “But I think they have a pretty steep hill to climb given the location of the plant and the population density around it and some of the problems that have come up with the plant.”

In a way, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is on trial, too, given that its staff has already concluded that relicensing is warranted.

After the three administrative law judges — two engineers and a lawyer — rule on the challenges, the losing side is expected to appeal directly to the five-member commission in Washington. If the commission upholds a challenge, Entergy will have to change hardware or procedures at Indian Point to solve the problem unless it decides that the cost makes retiring the plant more prudent economically.

Expert testimony from Entergy and the plant’s opponents has already been filed, so much of the hearing will consist of cross-examination of witnesses and questions from the judges. The state is pressing for additional opportunities to cross-examine witnesses, and the commission plans to rule on that request on Friday.

Another avenue the state is pursuing to shut down Indian Point, the denial of a state water-use permit, could threaten the plant regardless of the commission’s final decision. The state contends that the plant’s cooling water technology kills too many fish when it draws water from the Hudson River and that Entergy should build cooling towers.

But a court could reverse that decision if it found that the state’s real motivation was nuclear safety, a federal responsibility.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/12/science/earth/hearings-set-on-renewing-indian-point-reactors-licenses.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion

Fiscal Woes, Long-Held Fears Spur Waste-to-Energy Debate

New York is thinking about diverting garbage from out-of-state landfills and using it to generate electricity locally. The plan pits concerns about city spending and carbon emissions against fears of environmental injustice.

By Bill Hughes
City Limits Magazine

In the years since a tugboat nosed the last barge full of garbage into the massive Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island when it was officially closed back in March of 2001, the tax burden and environmental impact of dealing with New York City's trash have increased dramatically. City officials estimate that in a single year, tractor-trailers log 40 million miles to haul 3 million tons of trash from the five boroughs to out-of-state landfills, mostly in Pennsylvania and Virginia. The flat cost of shipping trash to landfills has risen from $62 per ton in 2001 to $92 per ton last year. A recent report by the Citizen's Budget Commission concluded that, "The waste that New York City sends to landfills generates about 679,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases per year – the equivalent of adding more than 133,000 cars to the roads."

To address the growing problem, Mayor Michael Bloomberg included a partial solution in his 30-year master plan for the city, PlaNYC, which calls for the construction of a new Waste-to-Energy (WTE) facility to process trash that cannot be recycled. A Request for Proposals (RFP) was issued in March of 2012 to the private sector to build a facility, "…using reliable, cost-effective, sustainable and environmentally sound waste to clean energy technology."

Among the requirements in the RFP was a mandate that the pilot facility be located either in the five boroughs or within an 80-mile radius of the city. It would have to begin by processing 450 tons per day, with the city making no capital investment but paying a tipping fee once it starts sending trash. The 450-ton per day capacity would have to double if the pilot is successful. The bid went out in March, applications were due by June 5th and the award was supposed to be announced in early September. A Bloomberg spokesman last week said the proposals were still under review and an announcement might be made in November. The administration estimates that over 30 years if expanded facilities could accommodate two million tons of trash annually, the city would save about $119 million dollars per year and combined greenhouse gas emissions would be cut by 240,000 metric tons per year.

Almost immediately, environmental justice advocates began protesting, saying the writing on the wall leaned toward a WTE process called thermal processing, which many feel is a fancy code for incineration. The New York Public Interest Research Group reacted to the RFP's announcement by organizing protests and labeling thermal processing as unsafe, unproven and inequitable to communities of color.

Worries about impact on recycling, neighborhoods

The advocates also feel strongly that devoting resources to WTE technology will take away from recycling efforts, where New York lags, ranking 16th out of 27 major U.S. cities in a recent survey. San Francisco, which recycles 77 percent of its household waste, ranked first in the nation, while New York recycled only 15.4 percent in 2011.

"That's just disgraceful," said Eddie Bautista, executive director of the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance. "How can it be that with all the wealth and technology available to this city that we can't manage to do better than we're doing today?"

Bautista also worries about who'll be affected most if the city locates a thermal processing facility within the five boroughs: "There are only so many neighborhoods zoned for this type of activity. They're typically located in low-income communities and they're already over-burdened with industrial polluters."

Bautista took part in a protest back in April when city officials took prospective bidders on a tour of potential sites, including the Fresh Kills landfill. And he was not alone.

"We've suffered enough out here and we've suffered disproportionately," said City Councilman Vincent Ignizio of Staten Island at a September meeting of the council's Solid Waste and Sanitation Committee. "When Robert Moses opened Fresh Kills in 1948 it was only supposed to be for three years. It took 50-plus years for us to finally get it closed, and toward the end we were the only dumping ground for all the city's garbage." Ignizio added that he grew up within smelling distance of Fresh Kills and remembers many nights sleeping in his parents' bedroom because they had the only air conditioner which could mask the odor of the dump.

The outcry from residents and Staten Island elected officials was loud enough that the Bloomberg administration removed the entire borough of Staten Island from consideration in the RFP. But the other boroughs are still in the mix.

Technology has defenders

Proponents of WTE technology argue that thermal processing is a form of recycling and that new technologies and EPA regulations have eliminated the odor and air pollution many people connect with the process of incinerating trash. Professor Nickolas J. Themelis, director of the Earth Engineering Center at Columbia University, said he thinks that much of the opposition to creating WTE plants in the city stems from people's memories of the bad old days.

"At one point New York had 30 municipal incinerators and about 15,000 residential incinerators with no regulation at all. It was a mess," said Themelis. "There is this kind of animus among people who have been exposed to incinerators in the past. They associate them with black smoke and horrific pollution. But the truth is, those are all gone now. The pollution generated by trucking waste to landfills can't compare to how little a modern WTE facility produces. The people who oppose these technologies are like the Flat Earth Society, they are holding back progress."

Themelis recently completed work on a large collaborative study for the Inter-American Development Bank to recommend the best WTE technology for waste management in Latin America. "Regrettably, we came to the conclusion that the technology we use now is the best to use. Over the past decades roughly 125 plants have been built around the world using thermal combustion … with increasingly strict emissions standards. The data we have collected is, I think, unassailable. These systems produce far less emissions than landfilling."

There are currently 10 WTE facilities statewide licensed by the Department of Environmental Conservation to burn municipal waste and convert it into steam and electricity. One is located in Peekskill, about 50 miles up the Hudson River. The facility is owned by Wheelabrator, a subsidiary of Waste Management, the country's largest waste processor, which serves more than 20 million residential, commercial and municipal customers nationwide.

The Peekskill facility processes approximately 700,000 tons of waste per year, or about 95 percent of the household trash generated by Westchester County, according to Operations Manager Brett Baker. Three, nine-story tall boilers burn about 2,250 tons of pre-recycled trash per day, using the trash as fuel. The heat (over 2,000-degrees Fahrenheit) drives a turbine which generates electricity—60 megawatts of electricity per hour.—which is sold to Con Edison via a direct feed to its grid. The ash is cooled and sifted for recyclable metal and the remains, about 10 percent of the initial volume, are sent to landfills. The emissions are forced through a series of filtering systems until they are below state and federal guidelines for pollutants, then released through one large stack.

"We have about a 90 percent reduction rate in the waste stream," Baker told a reporter in September. "And as you can tell when you drove up here, we burn clean. There's virtually no odor at all coming out of the stack and everything is well within EPA guidelines." Waste Management officials claim they operate enough WTE facilities across the U.S. to power 1 million homes and they expect to double that output by 2020.

Of course, not everyone shares a rosy outlook on the plant. A December 2010 report by the Peekskill Environmental Justice Council identified the facility as, "A major source of air pollution." A state permit issued in March 2012 listed the wide ranges of toxic pollutants the plant is permitted to release, including up to 10 tons per year each of dioxins, mercury, arsenic, lead and cadmium.

Newer technologies and emissions controls were recently approved at a facility run by one of the likely bidders for the NYC contract, Covanta Energy, which currently burns some of New York's trash for $66 per ton at its facility in Newark. Environmental activists believe those changes would not have been made without public pressure. Industry analysts point out that waste processors are trying to find an economic "sweet spot," where new technology implementation costs don't swallow up potential profits.

Searching for viable options

New York's RFP identified several different WTE technologies that companies could propose besides thermal incineration—like plasma gasification, hydrolysis and anaerobic digestion.

In early September The New York Times profiled a non-profit company with a plasma gasification facility in Florida, one that burns municipal waste at more than 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit then electrifies it. The promoters of the technology claim the process breaks down the chemical bonds of carcinogenic material like PCB's, asbestos and medical waste, rendering them harmless without creating dioxin or other harmful byproducts. But opponents point out that pushing such technology will hinder recycling and the development of ecologically friendly products and policies. Others point out that the plasma gasification consumes roughly half the energy it creates to feed its own power requirements. 
The other technologies in the city's RFP, anaerobic digestion and hydrolysis, deal mainly with organic materials and would only handle a small percentage of the city's waste, meaning thermal processing might be the most effective alternative to landfilling.

Proponents of the technology point to several European cities like Vienna, Paris and Copenhagen which have built thermal processing WTE facilities inside their city limits and incorporated them into the cityscape.

But critics like the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives say the higher a country's incineration rate, the lower its recycling rate. The group released a report tracking waste treatment strategies across the 27-member European Union. According to the report, while Denmark had the highest rate of WTE incineration at 54 percent of the country's total waste stream, it only recycled 23 percent. "It is necessary to implement a system that reduces waste generation, reuses and recycles waste, and phases out both incineration and landfilling," the report concluded.

On Oct. 5 San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee announced that the city had reached an 80 percent landfill diversion rate through aggressive recycling, reuse and composting initiatives making it the "greenest" city in North America and moving it closer to the goal of "zero waste"—a target of which Themelis is skeptical.

"There are people who talk about ‘zero waste,' but zero waste is not a reality, it's a fantasy. True, we should recycle as much as is practical, but you cannot neglect that you must do something with what can't be recycled."Themelis added that America's comfort level with landfill arises partially from an excess of open space that few other countries enjoy. "New York City sends 100,000 truckloads of landfill out of state every year, but sooner or later the state borders will be closed, that's not going away."

According to recent EPA data, there are currently 87 facilities in the U.S. burning trash to generate electricity. The combined output of these facilities amounts to approximately 2,500 megawatts, or 0.3 of total national power generation. The agency cites the high construction cost of such facilities as one reason that the public will and financing to build them has been lacking.

It's unclear if the city's fiscal challenge and growing concern about its carbon footprint will create the political support necessary for WTE in New York. Councilwoman Letitia James, who chairs the Sanitation and Solid Waste Committee, said she supports the RFP initiative, but under the conditions that minority communities are not disproportionately impacted and the economics make good sense. "I'm open to examining it," said James during a recent interview. "Not necessarily supporting it, but examining it. Because there's just no way we can continue to afford to ship millions of tons of garbage out of the state." 

http://www.citylimits.org/news/articles/4638/fiscal-woes-long-held-fears-spur-waste-to-energy-debate