ValleyWatch

August 27, 2013- Video from the National Academies. Editorial note-valleywatch.net is intimately involved in the whole issue of Carbon Capture and Storage and in fact is taking a leadership position on seeking to make sure that a process called “enhanced oil recovery” or EOR is not allowed to be considered Carbon Capture and Storage since in most cases, the oil gotten through the injection of CO2 into these underground caverns to extract oil results in more CO2 ultimately reaching the atmosphere than is actually sequestered for more than a thousand years. 

This video is a joint project by the National Research Council and the US Department of Energy.

About 60% of the energy consumed in the United States come from fluids pumped from the ground. Activities related to producing this energy, including conventional oil and gas drilling, hydraulic fracturing, geothermal energy production, and underground disposal of wastewater, has been linked to a small number manmade earthquakes. This new video, based upon Induced Seismicity Potential in Energy Technologies (NRC, 2013), examines the science behind manmade seismic activity and discusses practices that can help reduce risks.

August 15, 2013-Posted on YouTube by Fum Gebra

August 8, 2013-by Philip Kuptz  in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Patric Kuptz means it when he says he grew up on the Great Lakes.

“I’ve spent most of my life within 50 feet of here,” the 37-year-old said on a sunny May morning, working on a boat near his third-generation family home — a brown brick duplex at the edge of Milwaukee’s South Shore Yacht Club.

This is where, as a boy, he Huck-Finned away his summers — chasing perch from the docks, splashing in the frigid surf and making all manner of mischief around the yacht club, news of which often made it home before he did.

Today, Kuptz hardly recognizes the lakeshore as the one he grew up on, pointing to a beach that didn’t exist when he was a kid in the mid-1980s, when the water was about five feet higher and yacht club members needed steps to ascend from the docks to their boats. When that record-high water dropped a couple of years later and those stairs were being thrown away, the young Kuptz couldn’t believe it.

He knew even back then that lake levels were a fickle thing, so he hatched a plan to stash the stairs in his garage — and sell them back to their owners when the lake bounced back.

Kuptz is glad he never acted on it because the only record water level that has returned in the last quarter century is the record low set this winter. Today it is Kuptz who is convinced the lake isn’t coming back, at least not in his lifetime, and now he is the one making plans accordingly.

He sold his sailboat.

“I actually bought a power boat because I’m worried about the draft,” Kuptz said of the keel-grabbing water levels. “It’s nuts. I’d never seen it this low.”

Nobody has.

A great unknown

Lake Michigan is no longer just a Great Lake; it is a great unknown.

More ominous than the all-time low the lake touched this winter is the fact that it came after languishing for 14 years below its long-term average — another record. And when it did initially drop below that long-term average, it plunged three feet between 1998 and 1999 — yet another record for water lost from one year to the next.

The lake level, of course, has been in constant flux since record-keeping began a century and a half ago. Tracking it on a graph is like looking at an EKG monitor. Little blips and dips reflect seasonal oscillations that cause the lake, in a typical year, to vary about a foot between summertime high and wintertime low.

In addition to those annual ebbs and flows are larger swings that span decades tied to long-term weather patterns, with Lake Michigan’s record high topping out more than 6 feet above the record low set this January.

Draw a red line through the middle of all those highs and lows and you get what was, up until 1999, Lake Michigan’s long-term average surface level — 579 feet above sea level.

That year the lake mysteriously took its 3-foot dive, and it has stayed down for nearly a decade and a half — and counting.

Previous drops into low water, in the 1920s, ’30s, ’50s and ’60s, were always followed by a quick and sustained rebound beyond the long-term average. Usually it happened within three or four years, though the slow but steady climb during the Dust Bowl droughts took the better part of the ’30s.

But with this ongoing low water, which has never shown an indication that it is on a sustained track back toward average, decades of rhythmic pulses hitched to the red line appear to have stopped, or at least stalled.

Frank Quinn, a retired hydrologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, has been tracking lake levels for more than a half century, and he’s heard all manner of crazy theories for the previous lows. Atom bomb testing was a popular culprit in the 1960s, and rumors swirled for years of a secret canal under Niagara Falls channeling flows to thirstier regions.

The truth was always a little drier — the lakes were simply suffering from a lack of rain and snow.

What’s going on today is different.

“Based on the precipitation we’ve had, we would not expect to have the record low lake levels that we have,” Quinn said.

Last year was indeed extremely dry. But the past 14 years, on average, have been wetter than usual for Lakes Michigan and Huron, which are actually one body of water connected at the Straits of Mackinac.

Even so, the lakes remain about a foot and a half below their average for this time of year.

So where did all the water go?

This is not a story about climate change.

It is a story about climate changed.

 Go to Original

August 1, 2013-by Tony Cook in the Indianapolis Star. Editors Note: Valley Watch, Inc. has been an intervener with Citizens Action Coalition, Save The Valley  and Sierra Club from the very beginning of this project. In fact, we predicted fairly accurately that Duke would greatly overrun their costs and bilk Duke ratepayers out of their hard earned dollars. We recommend that people who see this article click on this link and listen to the 21 minutes of testimony delivered to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission in late August 2007 in which John Blair  tells the Commission almost the exact scenario of what has happened over the last several years. Of course we were ignored. It is sad that the Regulators chose, instead to hop into bed with Duke and remain there to this day.Duke Energy’s controversial $3.5 billion power plant in Edwardsport broke down just six days after the utility company declared it operational, according to new regulatory filings.

In testimony filed on July 3, plant manager Jack Stultz told regulators the plant had been offline since June 12 (Duke officials said today the date was actually June 13). The plant converts coal to synthetic natural gas, which it then uses to create electricity. It’s the largest plant of its kind in the world.

Stultz attributed the shutdown to damage to fans that help vaporize waste water at the plant. Without them, Duke can’t operate the plant’s two gasifiers. He said the company was analyzing the problem and hoped to get the gasifiers online again in early July.

What will $3.3 billion buy? just a bunch of Chinese steel and experimental technology for which Dupe Energy customers were forced by the state of Indiana to assume the risk for. Pictured is the Duke Energy Edwardsport power plant which could turn out to be a very expensive “lemon.” Photo © 2012 John Blair

The multi-week shutdown took place a day after Duke provided members of the media with a tour of the new plant. During the tour, Stultz told reporters the plant was producing 480 megawatts of electricity and would ramp up to nearly 600 megawatts by the end of the day. One turbine was running on natural gas, the other on gasified coal, he said.

Duke spokeswoman Angeline Protogere said in an email Thursday morning that the plant is now back online.

“As Jack’s testimony forecasted, we returned the gasifier to service in early July and the gray water fan issues have been addressed,” she said. “We expect to deal with technical issues early in operations. As issues have arisen, they have been addressed. We’ve not found anything that will affect the long-term operations of a plant that will be (in) service for decades.”

She said Duke expects production to ramp up to full capacity over the next 15 months. The plant ran at less than 10 percent capacity in June, according to a monthly compliance report.

Consumer advocates are accusing Duke of prematurely declaring the plant operational. Doing so would allow Duke to recover any repair costs from ratepayers that they wouldn’t be able to otherwise because of a settlement reached in December that capped ratepayer liability for construction costs at about $2.6 billion, plus millions more in financing costs. The $3.5 billion plant was originally estimated to cost less than $2 billion. Continue reading →

July 14, 2013-by John Blair, valleywatch.net editor

Ever wonder why there are so many bugs around? it is simple to explain. They like sex. Here three stick bugs enjoy themselves on a Sunday afternoon. Photo © BlairPhotoEVV.

July 14, 2013-by Chris Sikich in the Indianapolis Star. Ed. Note: valley watch.net editor, John Blair has done photography work for Brad Morton and Morton Solar and Wind.

Morton Solar operates in Illinois, Kentucky and Indiana. In Indiana they run into obstacles with their local utility which wants to charge ridiculous fees to connect to the Vectren grid. In Kentucky,a coal state, too, they find it much easier to build solar projects like this school just north of Bowling Green. Photo: © BlairPhotoEVV

Third-grade teacher Donya Bengert and her students learned a real-life lesson when they undertook a yearlong project to build a wind turbine in 2010 at their small Southern Indiana school.

They raised $25,000 from business grants and penny-jar donations. They won governmental and school board approvals. But when they were ready to install the turbine, Vectren Energy charged a $12,000 fee for a new transformer it said was necessary to handle the additional energy load.

“I almost had a heart attack,” Bengert said. “Oh my gosh, we spent almost a year raising all this money, we’ve got it all and we’re ready to go.

“But Vectren didn’t want to do it.”

The project’s installer, Brad Morton of Evansville-based Morton Solar & Wind, has filed a complaint with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission. He alleges that Vectren has violated state code the past eight years to stop or slow a number of renewable energy projects on which he has worked.

Vectren disputes the allegations, saying the utility follows state regulations and works to ensure renewable projects are safely and reliability added to the electrical grid.

Renewable energy advocates and contractors are watching the case closely, as they try to convince state policymakers and utilities that Indiana needs to further encourage cleaner alternatives to fossil fuels such as coal. They say the filing could have a wide effect on how much money utilities charge and how long they can take to process applications to fully connect solar and wind projects to the electrical grid.

Indiana ranks 39th lowest of the states in the percentage of renewable energy it generates. Only 3 percent of the power consumed in Indiana is from renewable energy, 9 percentage points behind the national average.

Kerwin Olson of Citizens Action Coalition, an advocacy group for energy policy and utility reform, said there is a clear resistance in Indiana to renewable energy.

“There are a lot of questions about the policy level at the Statehouse, at the regulatory commission and with utility business plans about whether they are really doing enough to enable renewable energy,” Olson said. (MORE)

July 8, 2013- by John Blair, valleywatch.net editor

I just watched Josh Fox’s Gasland 2. I am having trouble keeping the tears from my eye as I write this “review.”

As in Gasland 1, Fox takes us on a journey across America to show the devastation that our pursuit of natural gas has brought upon the environment, and very human beings who have been forced to live under the influence of the fossil fuel industry.

Sadly, the issues Fox brings to light are pretty much the same as those that I have encountered fighting coal in the Illinois Basin for thirty-seven years.. Extraction industries get their way because they own most politicians and the system is inherently corrupt.

Does it have to be that way? NO!

I don’t have the answer and I am sure Josh Fox feels the same, but with people like him and Michael Moore and all the people who have had the courage to stand up to the forces of evil that destroy people’s lives in the pursuit of greed, at least we can have hope that our values will ultimately prevail. If we don’t, our very existence is likely to succumb much sooner than we would ever believe.

July 8, 2013-Gas to Power Journal. Editor’s note: valleywatch.net does not believe there is such a thing as “clean coal.” That term is nothing but a ruse used by coal interests to dupe a naive public and politicians into thinking that coal can be used. An even then they rfuse to acknowledge that controlling coal’s numerous emissions is a VERY expensive proposition. 

Read more: http://gastopowerjournal.com/regulationapolicy/item/1970-energy-companies-should-be-warned-of-the-cost-of-clean-coal-%E2%80%93-ier#ixzz2YV4KIdtO

obama-climate-plan

June 24, 2013- Editorial in the Ft. Wayne News-Sentinel

Both the public and officials should know someone is watching.

Mark Lubbers and Mark Massa have been friends a long time. Now, Lubbers represents the developers of the proposed $2.8 billion coal-gasification plant in Rockport. And Massa is a sitting justice of the Indiana Supreme court, which is scheduled to hear a dispute over the case raised by opponents who say the plant will cost utility customers as much as $1.1 billion in higher rates.

Mark Massa

The need for Massa to recuse himself from the case is obvious – the potential conflict of interest here is not subtle. But the fact is that Massa so far has not recused himself. In fact he hasn’t even said whether he’s considering the possibility.

The case illustrates a limitation of ethics policies and guidelines that we don’t often think about. No matter how strong the ethics infrastructure is – no matter how many panels we appoint, no matter how many rules we write – voters and taxpayers in the end have to trust the judgment of the people elected and appointed to office. There is no way to look into someone’s mind to discover if “Yes, I can still be objective” is a true statement or merely wishful thinking.

That doesn’t mean the infrastructure isn’t important. If nothing else, all the panels and the rules serve to keep ethics in the public mind, to let us know that someone in government is at least thinking about doing things fairly and justly and without hidden agendas. That knowledge is what helps us have faith in our government instead of viewing it as an evil outside force.

They keep ethics in the minds of public officials, too, letting them know someone is watching. As much as they might like to, they can’t operate on their own set of rules without being held accountable.

That’s an important consideration in a state like Indiana that still has a part-time legislature. Most of our lawmakers earn their livelihoods at something other than their role as legislators, so every time the General Assembly convenes, it is rife with conflicts of interest and potential conflicts.

The gasification case is set for arguments in the court in September, so Massa has some time to make up his mind. Lubbers says Massa will recuse himself if there is a reason to, because “his ethical standards are above reproach.” But University of Louisville law professor Les Abramson, who has written about judicial disqualification, says if a judge doesn’t get off a case as soon as he or she is made aware of a disqualification issue, “that throws into question any ruling the judge participates in.” So perhaps September isn’t that far away after all.

June 21, 2013, By Tim Landis in the Springfield State Journal-Register. Editors note: Valley Watch first opposed the Cash Creek and Taylorville plants in 2001. Louisville based, Erora, sold the the Taylorville proposal to Tenaska in in 2006. Tenaska then proposed a financing deal very similar to that proposed by Leucadia in Rockport which required customers to be forced to assume the risks for the plant and pay a premium for its output electricity as a prop to the construction trades and plant developers.

The Cash Creek site shown during the flood in April 2011, still sits idle with little chance of being developed. Photo: 2011 BlairPhotoEVV.

Nebraska energy developer Tenaska Inc. has dropped plans for an experimental coal plant at Taylorville after repeatedly failing to win state legislative backing.

A similar project in Texas also was dropped, the company said in an announcement Friday. Both plants were to be based on carbon-storage technology intended to more cleanly burn coal.

Company executives said the Taylorville Energy Center and the plant in Nolan County, Texas, were no longer viable economically. They cited competition from cheaper natural gas, falling prices for alternative energy, and uncertainty over state and federal energy regulation.

Tenaska joined the Taylorville project in 2006.

“A number of market and policy changes have occurred since then,” Tenaska president of development Dave Fiorelli said in a statement, “all of which have contributed to our belief that these projects are no longer viable.”

At its start, supporters of the Taylorville Energy Center said the plant would create hundreds of permanent jobs and boost sales of Illinois coal, while meeting stricter federal pollution-control standards.

The Illinois project ran into strong opposition from environmentalists, utilities and some of the state’s largest companies who argued power from the plant would be too expensive and would instead cost the state jobs.

Opponents also questioned claims of reduced emissions.

Tenaska even proposed a scaled-back version early this year that would burn natural gas instead of coal, but the project still failed to win legislative approval.

The Sierra Club released a statement Friday welcoming the decision as an acknowledgment of coal’s limits.

“Coal is a bad bet for utilities everywhere, and after years of fighting the inevitable, Tenaska learned this the hard way,” said Bruce Nilles, senior director of the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign.

Tenaska, based in Omaha, has developed 16 power-generation stations, according to the company website. It is nearing completion of one of the nation’s largest commercial solar projects near El Centro, Calif.

Tim Landis can be reached at 788-1536. Follow him at twitter.com/timlandisSJR.

Read more: http://www.sj-r.com/breaking/x1292456584/Developer-pulls-plug-on-Taylorville-Energy-Center#ixzz2X9KsfuuI

June 21, 2013-by Kerwin Olson, Executive Director of the Citizens Action Coalition (Editor’s note:Valley Watch has partnered with CAC for seven years to oppose the new Edwardpsort plant, including formal intervention in each of the eleven dockets that Duke has brought before the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission.)

Now that Duke Energy’s Edwards-port coal gasification plant is allegedly “commercial” as of June 7, it’s once again time to set the record straight and fill in the blanks. For more than seven years now, Duke and the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission have conveniently left out information they prefer the public not be told, as perhaps the truth is too inconvenient.

Duke, along with the IURC, continues to perpetuate the myth that the plant will result in just a 14.5 percent rate increase. The reality is this 14.5 percent represents only a portion of the financing costs for the project. Additional financing costs of at least $320 million, as well as the actual construction costs currently capped at $2.595 billion, are not included.

That 14.5 percent only represents the approximately $665 million in construction-work-in-progress charges, or CWIP, a tracker or extra fee tacked onto the bill of captive Duke ratepayers. How much more will monthly bills increase after the other $3 billion is factored into rates? Ask Duke or the IURC … see if you can get a straight answer.

Duke is already collecting approximately $30 million per month from ratepayers just for financing costs. In fact, Duke ratepayers will pay more just for the financing charges for the Edwardsport fiasco than Indianapolis Power & Light is seeking in total for its proposed natural gas plant in Morgan County, a plant that will produce approximately the same amount of power.

Duke claims its construction costs are capped at $2.595 billion, but that isn’t accurate. Duke declared the plant “in-service” on June 7, which effectively marks the end of this so-called “cost cap” from the settlement. From this date forward, ratepayers can potentially be stuck with every dollar Duke spends on the plant, and there remains a lengthy “punch-list” of items that are yet to be completed. So, the settlement effectively exposes consumers to the potential of significant costs outside of the cap, which was intended to protect them.

Lastly, it needs to be understood that the IURC has declined to protect consumers from a white elephant by refusing to place any operational or performance requirements on the Edwardsport plant. Despite this plant being a first-of-its-kind technology, never built or operated at this scale anywhere in the world, if it doesn’t work or operates at less than the 85 percent capacity factor that Duke opined the plant will achieve, Duke ratepayers are stuck with the bill, no questions asked. As long as the plant runs for even a minute, Duke gets the full amount.

With Duke already collecting more than $30 million per month from customers for this plant, which is already two years behind schedule, Duke indicates it will be another 15 months before the plant is expected to have its “long-term level of availability” — whatever that means. Duke has been less than forthcoming every step of the way with this boondoggle … why should anyone believe them now?

June 18, 2013-Press Release form the Nobel Women’s Initiative

Ten recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize have written to President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry urging the rejection of the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline.

Nobel Laureates including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and His Holiness the Dalai Lama sent a previous letter to President Obama in September 2011.

The Laureates, many of whom urged the President to reject the pipeline in 2011, believe that now is the time for leadership by the United States on climate change. The rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline is a critical step in limiting the expansion of the Canadian oil sands—Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas pollution. The oil sands also have devastating impacts on local land, water, air, and communities.

The letter reminds the President and Secretary of State that, “Climate change threatens all of us, but it is the world’s most vulnerable who are already paying for developed countries’ failure to act with their lives and livelihoods. This will only become more tragic as impacts become worse and conflicts are exacerbated as precious natural resources, like water and food, become more and more scarce. Inaction will cost hundreds of millions of lives—and the death toll will only continue to rise.”

The letter goes on to say that, “as leaders who have spoken out strongly on these issues, we urge you, once again, to be on the right side of history and send a clear message that you are serious about moving beyond dirty oil towards the safe, clean and renewable energy future that the world deserves.”

The letter urges the President and Secretary to focus on building the safe, clean, and renewable energy future that the world deserves.

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For further media inquires:
Hannah McKinnon
613.276.7791

Read a copy of the letter below or click here to download. Continue reading →

June 10, 2013-by John Blair valleywatch.net editor

May 28, 2013- by John Blair, valleywatch.net editor 

My very first environmental involvement was when I was running for congress in 1976. At the time, industrial and agricultural interests, desiring a cheaper way to transport their wares around the globe were pushing the second coming of the nefarious 1860s Wabash Canal, which caused Indiana government to declare bankruptcy.

At that time, proposals, pushed mainly by then 7th District Indiana Congressman, John Myers, sought to both “canalize” and “channelize” the shallow and meandering Wabash River at least to Terre Haute, then on to Lafayette and beyond.

Those plans were thwarted by a rather loose band of environmentalists, headed up by Hoosier environmental icon, Tom Dustin and his wife, Jane. I was proud to have been a part of the group who fought and won a multi year battle to keep the Wabash natural and intact.

One thing I learned during that fight was that dam building to make reservoirs used to supply the required transportation depth of the shallow river were “the most environmentally destructive projects that could ever be built.” When dams are built, not only are thousands of acres of land inundated with water but entire ecosystems are completely wiped out along with family histories and local river cultures as homes are flooded.

Now, there is a proposal to build yet another dam and lake dubbed Mounds Lake which would inundate a path along the White River at least 2,000 acres of Madison and Delaware Counties, displacing around 400 homes, numerous businesses all presumably taken through the use of eminent domain by an appointed Commission. It will also require burying some yet to be determined amount of Mounds State Park.

Projected costs of building the unneeded reservoir exceed $400 million and as yet. no one knows just how it would be financed nor by whom.

Project proponents  claim benefits of flood control, water supply, recreation. But I suspect the real reason for the proposal is to create high priced “lakefront” housing for an elite group who could afford to build mansions on the new lake.

That is not without precedent in the area. Continue reading →