All Posts Tagged With: "Centralized energy"
Gas fueled 620MW power plant explodes near Middletown, Connecticut
Huge fossil fueled centralized power plant under construction and apparently cycling up engines for testing prior to full operation exploded this morning
…emergency response authorities said as many as 100 people were injured and an undetermined number may have died when a massive explosion, which homeowners felt more than 10 miles away and mistook for an earth quake, blew up a power plant being built on the Connecticut River in the southern section of Middletown at about 11 a.m. Sunday.
Medical rescue personnel said at least 100 were injured, four critically, and two were dead. “There are bodies everywhere,” a witness said. Another witness said many victims may be buried in rubble.
An hour after the explosion and what is believed to be the Kleen Energy Systems plant on River Road, emergency rescue personnel were continuing to arrive by vehicle and helicopter. Helicopters were airlifting victims to area hospitals.
Some early video is available here
More soon!
The myth of centralized grid redundancy
Redundancy, in the context of power transmission and distribution, means simply that there are lots of backup sources for power to take over, should a power source fail anywhere along the grid. My push for distributed energy micro-grids has been criticized locally claiming it lacks redundancy when in fact wide scale distributed energy is the epitome of a redundant electrical system. To make my point here are a few examples of massive power outages that occurred because there is no redundancy in the centralized grid. The article lists many examples of catastrophic grid failure but this one below is pretty amazing.
November 2006: A German power company switches off a high voltage line over a river to let a cruise ship pass. It triggers outages for 10 million people in Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
Recently, we had an outage in North Bend that cascaded through sections of Coos Bay. In the event of such an outage most utilities fall all over themselves disconnecting from the faltering line as quickly as possible to avoid massive outages. They do not, as is believed rush to help by rerouting power to the stricken area. It is more akin to a mass exodus to the life boats with all lines cut to keep from being sunk with the ship. No one tries to keep it floating.
Coos Bay proposed LNG terminal in the news
Today’s San Francisco Chronicle has done a good write up on the proposed LNG plant in Coos Bay and the Pacific Connector pipeline
Resident Jody McCaffree sees it as a place of sand dunes and shore birds, where the slumping local economy hasn’t destroyed a high quality of life. But a group of energy companies, including PG&E Corp., sees Coos Bay as a potential source of fossil fuel.
The companies plan to build on the bay’s northern shore a terminal for importing liquefied natural gas, deeply chilled fuel that, when warmed up, can run power plants, furnaces and stoves.
A proposed pipeline from the terminal would cut through 234 miles of rural land, mostly forest, before stopping at the town of Malin on the California border. There, an existing pipeline would move the gas north to the Pacific Northwest and south to California.
Suspicions the pipeline claimed to be for importation of natural gas will ultimately be used for export raises the specter that Pacific Gas & Electric is trying to take advantage of eminent domain rules.
…McCaffree and other Jordan Cove opponents wonder if it isn’t an export terminal in disguise.
The Pacific Connector pipeline, they note, could easily link to another proposed pipeline, called Ruby, that would enter Oregon from the east, supplying the West Coast with natural gas from the Rocky Mountains. If Jordan Cove is really designed for export, then any private property condemned to build the Pacific Connector pipeline would be condemned solely for corporate profit…
Project manager Bob Braddock says “…turning Jordan Cove into an export terminal would require completely redesigning the project and reapplying for government permits…”
Read the article here
Conspiracy of Fools – The argument for decentralized power
Okay, so this book came out in 2005 and I am only just getting to it but in reading about the fall of Enron, if ever there was a case to support doing away with centralized power, this is it. If ever there was a case that social justice cannot survive in a centralized world, this is it. If ever there was a case that centralized power (energy, banking, food production) is a threat to national security, this is it. At 784 pages it is a a long read and I still have 150 pages to go but I cannot put it down. Fascinating!!
SF says no to Coos Bay LNG
Hats off to Jody McCafree and the informed citizens of San Francisco for taking a stand to protect Coos County from the Jordan Cove LNG terminal and Pacific Connector Pipeline partnership with Pacific Gas & Electric.
Supervisor Chris Daly sponsored the city’s resolution after his legislative aide, Tom Jackson, met on July 16 with anti-LNG activist Jody McCaffree of North Bend and other opponents. McCaffree flew to San Francisco to talk to the city officials and to attend a solar energy fair.
McCaffree, who has led local anti-LNG efforts for several years, said the California officials picked right up on her concerns about reliance on foreign energy at the expense of renewable resources. She hadn’t expected them to move so quickly on a resolution.
“I was shocked,” she said. “They just understand it.”
Regrettably, most of our civic leaders have not done any real research so it is always refreshing to visit other communities where elected officials take their jobs seriously and do read and research issues before voting on them. The comment from PG&E is pretty funny when talking about liquefied natural gas.
Developing natural gas supply routes is part of the push for renewal energy, said Jonathan Marshall, a PG&E spokesman. Solar and wind energy can’t produce electricity constantly. Natural gas generators can fill the gaps.
“It’s an essential partner to renewable energy,” he said. “It actually enables the use of renewable energy.”
Honestly, the same can be said for ‘natural’ coal or natural’ plutonium or ‘natural’ … oh just read the list off the periodic table of the elements.
Right on, Jody, don’t let the ill informed comments get you down.
Did I just hear you say "little" Trinity? I think not ! She's half-grown !
Congratulations to you all ...
http://www.larryvanelsberg2010.com/index.html 
Thanks, Den, this is very useful 