Energy Probe

How the IAEA makes nuclear proliferation worse

Posted on December 15, 2006 by energyprbe

Tom Adams
Ottawa Citizen
December 15, 2006

What international player has been sharing nuclear technologies with Iran and North Korea for years, while receiving not punishment but encouragement from the civilized world?

That international player assisted North Korea’s monstrous regime with uranium prospecting, uranium ore processing, and radioisotope production. It helped Iran develop uranium mining. It is right now helping Iran to acquire some frightening technology for its Bushehr reactor, and to upgrade a smaller and more flexible “research” reactor.

The answer is not Dr. Strangelove or Mike Myers’s character Dr. Evil or a cell of former Soviet weaponeers turned entrepreneurs or some shadowy Middle Eastern state. Instead, the agency in question is the same one that is supposed to protect the world from nuclear weapons proliferation: the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

While supposedly protecting us from nuclear proliferation, here is a sample of what the IAEA has been up to. In North Korea, the IAEA initiated 29 “technical co-operation” projects since 1978, of which 15 were completed. Iran is enjoying 14 active projects today along with 52 nuclear projects completed.

Other clients include Syria (15 active projects), Pakistan (top recipient of IAEA aid in 2004), Libya (37 projects, starting in 1976), Afghanistan (during the Soviet era), and Burma (11 active projects).

The IAEA’s mandate – frozen since its origin in the muddled “Atoms for Peace” era of the 1950s when nuclear electricity “too cheap to meter” would mystically erase poverty and the stain of nuclear weapons – is irreconcilably conflicted. It is responsible for spreading nuclear technology far and wide. It describes itself as the “global focal point for nuclear co-operation . . . facilitat(ing) the transfer of such technology and knowledge in a sustainable manner to developing member states.” It is also the agency responsible for verifying compliance with the international treaty designed to hold back nuclear Armageddon: the nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The NPT is itself irreconcilably conflicted. It entered into force in 1970. With 187 signatories, it is the most widely subscribed international treaty. The NPT’s three pillars are: prohibition of nuclear weapons proliferation, committing the five “declared” nuclear weapons states to eventual disarmament, and enshrining the “inalienable” rights of signatory countries to “participate in the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.”

The IAEA has not only scientifically aided many nuclear weapons proliferators, its nuclear weapons control record is nothing short of disastrous.

* The IAEA failed to detect Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons program before the 1991 Gulf War and officially denied its existence, although Iraq was a member of the NPT and subject to the IAEA’s most extensive “full-scope safeguards.” Only after the war, unprecedented international inspections and defecting scientists revealed a massive program to develop both fission and fusion bombs. This dereliction matches the IAEA’s support for Iraq’s Osirak reactor, which was revealed as a plutonium factory after Israel bombed it in 1981.

* The Libyan government revealed that country’s extensive nuclear weapons program after the current Iraq war started, a program the IAEA had not detected despite Libya’s membership in the NPT and IAEA inspections. Among the discoveries were Chinese plans for a nuclear explosive, with details right down to the best glue to use on particular parts.

* The IAEA failed to detect, much less curtail, the “nuclear supermarket” run by A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani scientist who admitted to selling plans and components to Libya, North Korea and Iran.

* The IAEA was the last to recognize North Korea’s military use of its civil nuclear power program.

* After nine years of work searching for abandoned dirty-bomb ingredients in Georgia, the IAEA found two potent radiation sources only last June.

Instead of controlling nuclear weapons, the IAEA spends much of its effort whitewashing the impacts of radioactive pollution from nuclear power. The IAEA’s official estimates of Chernobyl’s total expected health toll are constantly revised upward but lag behind the estimates of major independent studies.

As history has proved, one of the most frightening arms-control challenges is containing “dual-use” nuclear technologies – technologies that can be used for both civilian and weapons purposes. But the basic mandate of the IAEA and the fundamental legal framework of the NPT commits them to both promote dual-use, making them proliferators’ tools.

North Korea craftily employed the NPT en route to nuclear weapons. Kim Jong-il’s dad, Kim Il-sung, entered into the NPT in 1985 to secure Soviet nuclear aid. North Korea threatened withdrawal in 1994, but stayed after securing a deal with the Clinton administration to secure Western nuclear and non-nuclear aid.

North Korea finally withdrew in 2003. The UN Security Council’s reaction was muted largely because Pakistan and Syria – key North Korean missile clients – were members at the time. Upon withdrawal, North Korea dishonestly stated it “has no intention of making nuclear weapons” and nuclear activities “will be confined only to power production and other peaceful purposes.”

Nuclear regulatory agencies in Western countries once had mandates enshrining the same promote/control conflict that contaminates the IAEA and NPT today. The Canadian Atomic Energy Control Act of 1946, which created our federal nuclear regulator and research agency, embodied this conflict – the subtitle of that act was “An Act Relating to the Development and Control of Atomic Energy.” The U.S. had a similar mess under its Atomic Energy Commission that Congress moved to clean up with the creation of a safety-dedicated Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 1974. Canada waited until May 2000 to create an officially safety-dedicated Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

In a victory of hope over logic, the Nobel Committee granted the IAEA and its director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, its Peace prize in 2005.

The world is moving far too slowly in recognizing nuclear technology for the hazard it represents. The fact that there is no agency or treaty single-mindedly dedicated to limiting and eliminating nuclear weapons speaks volumes. The promote/control conflict inherent in the IAEA and NPT has often increased the risk of nuclear weapons. We must scrap the IAEA and the NPT, and bring in dedicated replacements.

Does anybody think we have time to wait?

Tom Adams is executive director of Energy Probe, a national energy think-tank.

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The Deniers, Part I: Statistics needed

Posted on November 28, 2006 by energyprbe

Lawrence Solomon
National Post
November 28, 2006

In the global warming debate, there are essentially two broad camps. One believes that the science is settled, that global warming is serious and man-made, and that urgent action must be taken to mitigate or prevent a future calamity. The other believes that the science is far from settled, that precious little is known about global warming or its likely effects, and that prudence dictates more research and caution before intervening massively in the economy.

The “science is settled” camp, much the larger of the two, includes many eminent scientists with impressive credentials. But just who are the global warming skeptics who question the studies from the great majority of climate scientists and what are their motives?

Many in the “science is settled” camp claim that the skeptics are untrustworthy – that they are either cranks or otherwise at the periphery of their profession, or that they are in the pockets of Exxon or other corporate interests. The skeptics are increasingly being called Deniers, a term used by analogy to the Holocaust, to convey the catastrophe that could befall mankind if action is not taken. Increasingly, too, the press is taking up the Denier theme, convincing the public that the global-warming debate is over.

In this, the first of a series, I examine The Deniers, starting with Edward Wegman. Dr. Wegman is a professor at the Center for Computational Statistics at George Mason University, chair of the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics, and board member of the American Statistical Association. Few statisticians in the world have CVs to rival his (excerpts appear nearby).

Wegman became involved in the global-warming debate after the energy and commerce committee of the U.S. House of Representatives asked him to assess one of the hottest debates in the global-warming controversy: the statistical validity of work by Michael Mann. You may not have heard of Mann or read Mann’s study but you have often heard its famous conclusion: that the temperature increases that we have been experiencing are “likely to have been the largest of any century during the past 1,000 years” and that the “1990s was the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year” of the millennium. You may have also heard of Mann’s hockey-stick shaped graph, which showed relatively stable temperatures over most of the last millennium (the hockey stick’s long handle), followed by a sharp increase (the hockey stick’s blade) this century.

Mann’s findings were arguably the single most influential study in swaying the public debate, and in 2001 they became the official view of the International Panel for Climate Change, the UN body that is organizing the worldwide effort to combat global warming. But Mann’s work also had its critics, particularly two Canadians, Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, who published peer-reviewed critiques of their own.

Wegman accepted the energy and commerce committee’s assignment, and agreed to assess the Mann controversy pro bono. He conducted his third-party review by assembling an expert panel of statisticians, who also agreed to work pro bono. Wegman also consulted outside statisticians, including the Board of the American Statistical Association. At its conclusion, the Wegman review entirely vindicated the Canadian critics and repudiated Mann’s work.

“Our committee believes that the assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade in a millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year in a millennium cannot be supported,” Wegman stated, adding that “The paucity of data in the more remote past makes the hottest-in-a-millennium claims essentially unverifiable.” When Wegman corrected Mann’s statistical mistakes, the hockey stick disappeared.

Wegman found that Mann made a basic error that “may be easily overlooked by someone not trained in statistical methodology. We note that there is no evidence that Dr. Mann or any of the other authors in paleoclimate studies have had significant interactions with mainstream statisticians.” Instead, this small group of climate scientists were working on their own, largely in isolation, and without the academic scrutiny needed to ferret out false assumptions.

Worse, the problem also applied more generally, to the broader climate-change and meteorological community, which also relied on statistical techniques in their studies. “[I]f statistical methods are being used, then statisticians ought to be funded partners engaged in the research to insure as best we possibly can that the best quality science is being done,” Wegman recommended, noting that “there are a host of fundamental statistical questions that beg answers in understanding climate dynamics.”

In other words, Wegman believes that much of the climate science that has been done should be taken with a grain of salt – although the studies may have been peer reviewed, the reviewers were often unqualified in statistics. Past studies, he believes, should be reassessed by competent statisticians and in future, the climate science world should do better at incorporating statistical know-how.

One place to start is with the American Meteorological Society, which has a committee on probability and statistics. “I believe it is amazing for a committee whose focus is on statistics and probability that of the nine members only two are also members of the American Statistical Association, the premier statistical association in the United States, and one of those is a recent PhD with an assistant-professor appointment in a medical school.” As an example of the statistical barrenness of the climate-change world, Wegman cited the American Meteorological Association’s 2006 Conference on Probability and Statistics in the Atmospheric Sciences, where only eight presenters out of 62 were members of the American Statistical Association.

While Wegman’s advice – to use trained statisticians in studies reliant on statistics – may seem too obvious to need stating, the “science is settled” camp resists it. Mann’s hockey-stick graph may be wrong, many experts now acknowledge, but they assert that he nevertheless came to the right conclusion.

To which Wegman, and doubtless others who want more rigorous science, shake their heads in disbelief. As Wegman summed it up to the energy and commerce committee in later testimony: “I am baffled by the claim that the incorrect method doesn’t matter because the answer is correct anyway. Method Wrong + Answer Correct = Bad Science.” With bad science, only true believers can assert that they nevertheless obtained the right answer.

Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and Urban Renaissance Institute and author of The Deniers.

CV OF A DENIER

Edward Wegman received his Ph.D. degree in mathematical statistics from the University of Iowa. In 1978, he went to the Office of Naval Research, where he headed the Mathematical Sciences Division with responsibility Navy-wide for basic research programs. He coined the phrase computational statistics, and developed a high-profile research area around this concept, which focused on techniques and methodologies that could not be achieved without the capabilities of modern computing resources and led to a revolution in contemporary statistical graphics. Dr. Wegman was the original program director of the basic research program in Ultra High Speed Computing at the Strategic Defense Initiative’s Innovative Science and Technology Office. He has served as editor or associate editor of numerous prestigious journals and has published more than 160 papers and eight books.

Background Sources:

Ad Hoc Committee Report on the ‘Hockey Stick’ Global Climate Reconstruction

Response of Dr. Edward Wegman to Questions Posed by the Honorable Mr. Bart Stupak in Connection with Testimony to
the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations

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Review of Wind Power Results in Ontario: May to October 2006

Posted on November 16, 2006 by energyprbe

Tom Adams

November 16, 2006

Summary:

The purpose of this study is to review the performance of wind power in Ontario, with particular attention to the period since the beginning of wind farm operations greater than 20 MW in the spring of 2006. This study comments on the GE Wind Power Integration Study released October 24, 2006 and hereafter referred to as the GE Study. Energy Probe’s study also provides recommendations arising from the observations of the performance results.

Selected Extracts

Summary

Wind power is a major new and rapidly expanding technology for supplying electricity in Ontario. This study reviews and analyzes the actual performance of wind power in Ontario with a view to accommodating as much wind generation as practical while protecting the consumer interests of affordability and reliability. The study presents results from a synchronized database of actual wind production and consumer demand. Recognizing that the production experience to date covers a relatively short period of seven months, this study makes the following observations:

• Capacity factor so far is 22.3% (not including results from a wind farm apparently experiencing start-up problems);
• Periods of very low or no production were particularly common during high-demand periods;
• High but highly variable wind production during low demand periods was common; and
• The hourly production pattern in most months demonstrated a declining average output during the 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. period – a period when consumer power usage consistently increases.

The study finds that two previous forecasts of wind power’s contribution to reliable Ontario generation capacity during the summer significantly over-estimated the value of wind power relative to the experience during 2006. Energy Probe is concerned that a clean and promising generating technology is being burdened with unrealistic forecasts of reliable production at times of high electricity demand that are not consistent with the actual production experience. In aid of understanding the overall value of electricity with wind power’s characteristics, Energy Probe’s study recommends a location-specific consideration of wind power’s productivity integrated with an analysis of the associated transmission and backup power implications of wind power development. Such analysis is necessary to estimate the overall future consumer and environmental implications of expanding reliance on wind generation.

Energy Probe’s study concludes that developing solutions for wind power’s variability should include:

• Analysis of impacts on non-wind generation requirements during high and low wind production events;
• Consideration of electricity storage options;
• Consideration of load management options to increase and decrease power usage on short notice;
• Research on wind output forecasting;
• Local and inter-regional transmission impact assessment;
• Monitoring of ancillary service cost impacts; and
• Locational targeting of wind development.

Introduction

Wind power is an environmentally attractive form of renewable energy from an overall toxicity and fuel use perspective. If wind power can be supplied to consumers at reasonable prices, it is a technology with vast potential. Ontario should seek to connect as much wind generation as practical while protecting the consumer interests of affordability and reliability. In achieving this, it must be recognized that the intermittent nature of wind power presents special technical and economic challenges that must be overcome if wind power is to be effectively incorporated into our electricity supply. In addition, connecting wind power to the grid may require transmission upgrades that must also be included in evaluating cost-effectiveness and reliability.

European grid operations officials are currently investigating what role, if any, wind power may have played in contributing to the massive blackout that struck approximately 10 million customers on Sunday, November 5, 2006 across a wide area of Europe.

Wind generated electricity is characterized by short-term output unpredictability and variability to a much greater extent than any other major power generation technology. Integrating any power source onto power grids serving customers demanding high standards of reliability presents technical and economic challenges, but in the case of wind power these challenges are particularly difficult and warrant special consideration.

According to the Ontario Power Authority’s (OPA) Supply Mix Advice and Recommendations, currently let or planned contracts will create 1,390 MW of on-line wind capacity by 2010. Of this, 1,261 MW was contracted under the Ontario government’s power contracting requests for proposals (RFPs). One such RFP concluded in 2004 and another in 2005.

Major wind power developments beyond those currently contracted are anticipated. At the direction of the Ontario government, the OPA is planning to have a total of 5,000 MW of wind power in service by 2020. The David Suzuki Foundation has recommended 8,000 MW by 2012. A study prepared by Helimax, a wind industry consulting firm, for the OPA identified 13,431 MW of wind-generation potential within 20 kilometres of the existing electricity grid in Ontario south of the 50th parallel.

Production Results

……A variable source of electricity whose variability correlates well with the variability of electrical demand would contribute disproportionately to reliability, and could displace more than its share of alternative generation capacity. Conversely, a variable source of electricity whose variability correlates poorly with the variability of electrical demand would not contribute significantly to reliability, or displace much alternative generation capacity. The correlation results presented for load and wind analyze the relationship between:

• The ratio of actual hourly wind output to average monthly wind output and
• The ratio of actual hourly load to average monthly load.

…..Prior to the development of wind power in Ontario, coal generation and to a much lesser extent oil and gas generation has been used extensively to meet ramping requirements. Other available methods, such as hydroelectric operational flexibility, have been fully deployed. The tendency of wind generators to decline in the morning while load is rising has increased ramping requirements on fossil generation. While Ontario’s new wind generation has reduced fossil fuel generation when wind output is available, the wind production pattern whereby output falls during the early morning has offset this benefit somewhat by lowering the fuel efficiency of the flexible fossil generators used for ramping, increasing air emissions per unit of production, and perhaps increasing maintenance costs.

Comments on the GE Wind Integration Study

The GE Study was sponsored by the IESO, the OPA, and the Canadian Wind Energy Association and is being used as input for the development of the OPA’s Integrated Power System Plan for Ontario.

GE Energy is the fourth largest supplier of wind generation equipment in the world.

The GE Study used no actual production results but is based on forecasted output although several months of actual results were available when the GE study was released.

The average annual production anticipated in the GE Study is 27.9%, above the top of the range Energy Probe anticipates for the year April 2006 through March 2007. The earlier Helimax study for the OPA forecast higher annual production of 29.3%.

Among its findings, the GE Study claims that with a high penetration of 10,000 MW of wind power, wind can be reliably counted on in summer for a firm supply of 1700 MW during summer peak hours.

The Ontario Clean Air Alliance has relied upon the GE Study forecast for summer reliability in its study “Phasing out coal: 2006 progress report” issued November 9, 2006.

The GE Study is inconsistent with the results of similar studies from other electricity systems .

A 2004 study was conducted to examine the grid and reliability impacts of wind power in Germany. 8 Germany’s overall power demand was 3.4 times that of Ontario’s in 2003. Germany is also much better interconnected with neighbouring markets, with 23 major interconnections as compared with 24 major and minor interconnections between Ontario and its five interconnected neighbours. Germany’s larger size and stronger interconnections are both factors that would tend to mitigate wind power impacts. The 2004 German study was able to utilize extensive actual production data. When adding a small amount of wind power to the grid, the study found that 1000 MW of wind power capacity added to the grid increased peak power firm generation capacity by only 80 MW (8% of the wind capacity). Adding 48,000 MW of wind power, forecast for 2020, the requirement for backup power is only reduced by 2000 MW (4% of the wind capacity). The German study found that the proposed tripling of wind capacity in Germany by 2020 is, in and of itself, driving a need for quintupling generation reserve requirements.

In Ontario, the IESO assumes that 10% of the installed capacity should be considered as firm capacity for meeting peak demands. A Pembina Institute study has commented on this assumption, “Given that the capacity factor for modern land-based wind turbines is accepted to range from 25%–40%, and that wind generating capacity in Ontario will be relatively geographically distributed, this may be an excessively conservative assumption.”

Both the GE Study conclusion and the IESO’s forecast about firm summer peak reliability are inconsistent with Ontario’s actual experience. [empahsis added]

During July and August 2006, the actual average frequency of hours when there was little or no wind output in Ontario – output less than 2% – was 18.6%. These very low production hours were about as likely to occur during the daily peak period as any other time during the day. Ontario’s experience in 2006 shows that the conclusion of the GE Study that wind can reliably supply power in summer equal to 17% of its rated capacity significantly over-estimated the actual results. The actual results for the summer of 2006 also suggest that the IESO should review its forecast that even 10% of the installed wind capacity should be considered as firm capacity for meeting peak demands. During the summer of 2006, wind power provided no firm generation capacity during the peak months. [emphasis added]

It is likely that diversifying the geographic distribution of wind production sites, as assumed in the GE Study, will lessen somewhat the problem of unreliable production during peak times and also the problem of average production variability, but only if transmission constraints can be alleviated. Transmission constraints were not considered in the GE Study. In making its assessment, the GE Study examined wind production prospects for many regions, including regions of the province around the western end of Lake Superior, an area likely to have different wind patterns than in eastern Ontario. This diversity would normally be beneficial. However, Ontario west of Marathon on the northern shore of Lake Superior has a congested interconnection with regions east of the nearby town of Wawa – the region of the province where by far the largest fraction of load exists. Even when possible, moving power from north western Ontario to southern Ontario increases line losses relative to the average line loss fraction.

The Ontario three wind farms in service since the spring of 2006 are all located in the southwestern region of the province. The experience so far shows a high correlation in output between the three wind farms studied.

…….The actual results from the summer of 2006 raise significant concerns about the assertions of the GE Study regarding dependable capacity during the peak of consumer demand. [empahsis added]

….The GE Study forecasts that with 10,000 MW of capacity installed, the variability of wind output in total MW will be less than the variability of load and that therefore wind variability can be fairly readily accommodated on the grid. This conclusion ignores the fact that near term load variability is usually predictable within a range of plus or minus less than 1%, whereas, as demonstrated from the German experience, wind power is highly unpredictable.

……One issue identified in the GE Study that deserves additional study is the impact of high but highly variable wind production during periods of low demand. The concern in this case is that during low demand periods, the generators dispatched are typically those with low production flexibility – nuclear, cogeneration, and hydroelectric generators operating under maximum flow constraints. The production experience in Ontario so far is that episodes of high wind production during periods of low demand have occurred in most months. In addition, episodes of low wind production have occurred during periods of high demand every month. As the installed capacity of wind power in Ontario grows, major swings in wind power output during periods of low demand may impose additional stresses on the power system. This problem could become much more acute when all coal-fired power is removed from the Ontario grid unless the coal fleet is replaced by a sufficient fleet of generators with production flexibility and reliability characteristics comparable to the existing coal generators.

Recommendations for Understanding and Managing Wind Integration

Historically, Ontario’s hydroelectric generating stations were able to provide fast ramping production flexibility. This capability has been used extensively to support the production inflexibility problems presented by nuclear power stations. Two trends continue to diminish the output flexibility of Ontario’s hydroelectric capacity. Hydroelectric generation has lost market share since the 1950s, thereby reducing its flexibility relative to overall swings in demand and supply. In addition, over time tighter environmental constraints have eroded the production flexibility of Ontario’s hydroelectric generators. One example illustrating this trend toward new constraints on the output relates to the Madawaska River. The Madawaska River generating cascade was designed to provide extensive ramping capability. However, following serious harm to pickerel spawning in the tailrace of the Mountain Chute dam, the largest storage dam on the system, during the spring of 1995 new, much more stringent regulatory constraints on the forebay levels and flow requirements were introduced. The trend toward tougher environmental constraints on hydro-electric operations appears likely to continue. For reasons of cost control and environmental impact mitigation, any future hydroelectric development in Ontario is likely to be run-of-river generation. In-province hydroelectric production flexibility is therefore likely to provide only limited assistance for shaping the output of wind power.

Additional electricity storage capability might be justified. Compressed air and pumped storage are both technologies in widespread use around the world. The most efficient pumped storage developments use greater natural geographic height differences than can be found in Ontario. Chemical storage of electricity for grid power applications, such as using flow batteries or hydrolysis of water, has not been proven commercially viable in widespread applications yet.

Because wind power swings in output are often large and unpredictable with current technology, manual or market-based demand control measures are of limited usefulness for wind impact mitigation. Automatic load flexibility might be a future solution to wind power variability. For example, electric water heaters that had automatic thermostatic controls might be used to absorb extra power for brief periods and cut demand at other periods. However, the “smart metering” plan currently being implemented in Ontario does not anticipate this type of requirement.

Meteorological research to advance the capability to forecast wind speed accurately is underway in many jurisdictions. Notwithstanding the limited results so far, as seen from the German example, as a high priority the IESO should undertake similar forecasting research reflecting local conditions. The IESO should seek to participate wherever possible with leading forecasting efforts in other jurisdictions. Ontario-based meteorological research should be conducted independently.

While studying other wind power jurisdictions can be useful, unique local circumstances need to be considered. For example, climatic and load conditions are different in Germany, Quebec, or Alberta than in Ontario. For example in Germany, local meteorological conditions combined with the availability of government-subsidized loan guarantees, reliance on a non-competitive standard offer payment structure, and government market share commitments for wind power appears to have created a geographically concentrated and low productivity wind fleet. Understanding and managing wind power in Ontario needs to be analyzed on a local level.

The transmission system impacts of wind development need to be examined in detail through independent studies. The GE Study did not address transmission considerations.

Expanded transmission capability within Ontario and between Ontario and interconnected regions will be required to manage wind power. However, since many of Ontario’s neighbouring jurisdictions are also developing wind power, the benefits of interconnection will be less than would occur if only Ontario was developing wind power. For example, Quebec is in the process of developing 4,000 MW of wind power. New York, with whom Ontario has its strongest electrical interconnections, is also experiencing rapid wind power development. This development is concentrated in regions near the Ontario border that, even in advance of wind power development, tend to be transmission constrained in delivering power south. During high wind power output periods in low Ontario load periods, Quebec and New York may be experiencing the same phenomena. Ontario should undertake joint wind integration research with neighbouring jurisdictions. One objective should be to identify the extent of correlation of high and low wind output between regions. Another objective should be to examine regional transmission system impacts. Inter-regional wind power integration research should be conducted independently

As identified by E.On Netz in its 2005 study, if other load shaping options are not sufficiently developed, flexible output standby generation with capacity approaching the capacity of the installed wind generators will be required. Back-up power requirements and impacts should be assessed. Since low-efficiency fossil generation is usually required for performing this function, some of the environmental advantage of wind power will have to be sacrificed if grid reliability is to be maintained. If natural gas generators are going to be used to backstop wind power, natural gas supply issues related to pipeline and storage capabilities and associate rules in gas markets will have to be considered. Any impacts whereby hydroelectric generation is spilled or hydroelectric facilities are required
to operate inefficiently in order to accommodate wind should be identified so they can be minimized.

Power grids require various reliability-related technical performance requirements, mostly provided by specially equipped generators or specialized transmission equipment. These include operating reserves, automatic generating control, black start, and reactive power among others. Collectively, these services are known as ancillary services. Ontario’s IESO is responsible for managing ancillary services and employs market-based and non-market based process for obtaining needed services. The IESO and the Market Surveillance Panel should routinely monitor the ancillary service costs to identify and quantify any impact wind power is having on increasing consumer costs in this area. The costs impacts of wind power should be estimated by comparing actual ancillary service costs with what those costs would have been without wind power, taking into account the offers to sell and bids to buy received by the IESO.

The Ontario government’s current procurement strategies for wind power are indiscriminate with respect to location. However, the overall cost and environmental impacts of wind power development in some regions of the province will be very different depending on local conditions of load and alternative generation. For example, north western Ontario has a strongly winter peaking demand for electricity – a factor that favours wind – but low overall generation costs and negative load growth, both factors that would suggest that wind investments would be better directed toward eastern Ontario. It is also possible that Southern Manitoba or nearby states in the U.S have more favourable wind regimes relative to the needs of north western Ontario as compared with the service local wind generators can provide.

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The Deniers, Part II: Warming is real – and has benefits

Posted on November 1, 2006 by energyprbe

Lawrence Solomon
National Post
November 1, 2006

One month ago, the world heard that global warming could lead to a global catastrophe “on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century.” This assessment, from Sir Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank, made banner headlines and led prominent leaders such as British Prime Minister Tony Blair to urge immediate action to stem global warming. It also led some prominent environmentalists to denounce Sir Nicholas for what they deemed an outrageous study bereft of credibility. None of the environmentalists issued a stronger denunciation, or has better environmental credentials, than Richard S.J. Tol. Tol is a Denier, to use the terminology of the “science-is-settled” camp in the increasingly polarized global warming debate. Like many other Deniers, Tol doesn’t think the evidence is in on global warming and its effects, he doesn’t think there’s reason to rush to action, and he doesn’t think that crash programs to curb global warming are called for. Also like many other Deniers, he doesn’t fit the stereotype that those who use the epithet imagine. Anything but. Tol is no fringe outsider to the scientific debate. He is at the centre of the academic investigation of global warming, a central figure in the scientific establishment that has been developing the models and the knowledge to understand the global warming phenomenon. At the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, considered by most the authoritative body in the field, Tol is involved as an author in all three of its Working Groups. He is also an author and editor of the United Nations Handbook on Methods for Climate Change Impact Assessment and Adaptation Strategies. He is also a mover and shaker in the prestigious European Climate Forum. He takes global warming seriously and has dedicated his professional life to making a contribution for the better in climate policy and related fields. Because of his immense reputation, the Stern report itself relied on Tol’s work in coming to its conclusions. But Sir Nicholas twisted Tol’s work out of shape to arrive at unsupportable conclusions. As one example, Sir Nicholas plucked a figure ($29 per ton of carbon dioxide) from a range that Tol prepared describing the possible costs of CO2 emissions, without divulging that in the very same study Tol concluded that the actual costs “are likely to be substantially smaller” than $14 per ton of CO2. Likewise, in an assessment of the potential consequences of rising sea levels, Sir Nicholas quoted a study co-authored by Tol that referred to the “millions at risk,” ignoring that the same study then suggested greatly reduced consequences for those millions due to the ability of humans to adapt to change. Throughout his report, in fact, Sir Nicholas not only assumed worst possible cases, he also assumed that humans are passive creatures, devoid of ingenuity, who would be helpless victims to changes in the world around them. Such assumptions underpinned Sir Nicholas’s claim that “the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever,” and led Tol to view Sir Nicholas’s conclusions as “preposterous.” Tol’s conclusion: “The Stern review can therefore be dismissed as alarmist and incompetent.” Tol and Sir Nicholas are worlds apart, and not just because of Sir Nicholas’s recklessness with the facts. Where Sir Nicholas paints an altogether bleak picture, Tol’s is far more nuanced: Global warming creates benefits as well as harms, he explains, and in the short term, the benefits are especially pronounced. More important, Tol is a student of human innovation and adaptation. As a native of the Netherlands, he is intimately familiar with dikes and other low-cost adaptive technologies, and the ability of humans in meeting challenges in their environment. To assume that humans in the future would not use their ingenuity and resourcefulness in sensible ways defies the history of mankind and ultimately serves no one. Yes, global warming is real, he believes, and yes, measures to mitigate it should be taken. But unlike the advocates who believe that the science is settled, and the global warning debate is over, Tol thinks that much research needs to be done before we know how best to respond. “There is no risk of damage [from global warming] that would force us to act injudiciously,” he explains. “We’ve got enough time to look for the economically most effective options, rather than dash into ‘actionism,’ which then becomes very expensive.” THE CV OF A DENIER: Richard Tol received his PhD in Economics from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. He is Michael Otto Professor of Sustainability and Global Change at Hamburg University, director of the Centre for Marine and Atmospheric Science, principal researcher at the Institute for Environmental Studies at Vrije Universiteit, and Adjunct Professor at the Center for Integrated Study of the Human Dimensions of Global Change, at Carnegie Mellon University. He is a board member of the Centre for Marine and Climate Research, the International Max Planck Research Schools of Earth Systems Modelling and Maritime Affairs, and the European Forum on Integrated Environmental Assessment. He is an editor of Energy Economics, an associate editor of Environmental and Resource Economics, and a member of the editorial board of Environmental Science and Policy and Integrated Assessment.

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More wind power viable: study

Posted on October 25, 2006 by energyprbe

Tyler Hamilton
Toronto Star
October 25, 2006

A study released yesterday by Ontario’s electricity authorities says wind power could represent nearly 20 per cent of the province’s power-generation capacity with little compromise to system reliability.

Critics say the numbers are suspiciously high.

Ontario has four major wind farms in service now with a potential of producing 396 megawatts of emission-free electricity. About 1,300 megawatts are to be operating by 2010.

The problem with wind energy is that another source of power generation, or “operating reserve,” is required to pick up the slack when the wind isn’t blowing. Add too much wind to the mix and the whole system can become unstable.

The study, conducted by GE Energy, concluded that Ontario’s electricity system could handle up to 5,000 megawatts of wind capacity with “negligible” need for additional operating reserves. Beyond that, a more substantial investment in reserve power is required.

It also found that the average capacity value of the wind resource in Ontario during the summer is about 17 per cent, meaning the province can expect to get 170 megawatts of electricity from wind turbines that could, under optimal conditions, generate 1,000 megawatts.

Don Tench, director of planning and assessments for the Independent Electricity System Operator, which balances demand and supply on Ontario’s grid, said the study will help guide the province as it puts together its 20-year system plan.

“We’ve still got some work to do to integrate 5,000 megawatts,” said Tench. “But I’m much more confident that something like this would be feasible.”

The system operator, along with the Ontario Power Authority and the Canadian Wind Energy Association, jointly commissioned the study. Tom Adams, executive director of Energy Probe, said he’s concerned that a wind-turbine manufacturer such as GE Energy was hired to do the work.

“The authorship of this suggests we should read it with caution,” said Adams, adding that his own analysis indicates the GE report is overly optimistic.

Tench said the study isn’t the final word on the issue. The system operator, for example, announced the creation of a working group yesterday that will explore ways of integrating wind power into Ontario’s grid.

The wind market, meanwhile, is booming in Canada.

The industry employed the equivalent of 1,200 full-time workers last year, up 65 per cent compared to 2004, and contributed $736 million to Canada’s GDP, says the wind association.

Revenue doubled in 2005 to $548 million.

Alberta has capped wind development at about 10 per cent of its system capacity because of inadequate transmission and concerns over grid stability.

Tench said Ontario will have to invest heavily in transmission to tap its vast wind resources up north.

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Canada’s nuclear role

Posted on October 11, 2006 by energyprbe

(Oct. 11, 2006) A response to Doug Saunders’ article for the Globe and Mail

Re: Test puts nuclear salesman in harsh light
(Original article appears below)

When considering the role played by Pakistani nuclear official Abdul Qadeer Khan in assisting North Korea’s nuclear-energy and weapons program, Canadians should examine the assistance we have provided in this evil chain of events. Continue reading →

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Canada’s nuclear role

Posted on October 11, 2006 by energyprbe

Tom Adams
Globe and Mail
October 11, 2006

A response to Doug Saunders’ article for the Globe and Mail

Re: Test puts nuclear salesman in harsh light
(Original article appears below)

Canada supplied Pakistan’s first reactor. Approximately 50 Pakistani nuclear trainees have been schooled at facilities of the federal nuclear promoter AECL, the Pickering reactors in Ontario, and the Point Lepreau reactor in New Brunswick. Trainees include key Khan associate Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, a pioneer of Pakistan’s nuclear-weapons program and a vocal admirer and material supporter of the Taliban who was arrested in Pakistan in 2001 on charges related to nuclear trafficking.

Restricted U.S. nuclear technologies were procured in Canada in 1980 by Pakistani nuclear officials and re-exported. Pakistan continues today as a long-standing participant in the Candu Owners Group, a nuclear-technology-sharing alliance the Canadian government initiated.

Canada’s policies on nuclear-technology exports usually rely on the assurances of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), both of which reflect the conflicted mandates of encouraging but controlling nuclear technology, although Canada has a long history of technology consultation with countries that have not signed the NPT, including India and Pakistan.

Pakistan and North Korea exploited the encourage/control conflict embedded in international controls to gain access to nuclear technology. Iran is following this approach. China is getting nuclear aid from Canada today under the same rules.

Until a safer approach to nuclear technology is developed, Canada should cut off all nuclear-technology exports and nuclear training of foreign officials, at least for countries that do not have stable democracies.

Tom Adams, Executive Director, Energy Probe

Test puts nuclear salesman in harsh light

by Doug Saunders, Globe and Mail, October 10, 2006

In the 1990s, as hundreds of thousands of North Koreans were dying of starvation while their regime withdrew further from the world, a chubby, jolly man made a series of flights on Pakistani military jets from Islamabad to Pyongyang.

The flights carried huge sums of money out of impoverished North Korea and delivered centrifuges, nuclear raw materials and instructions on making atomic bombs. The man who later confessed to enriching himself in the exchanges, and to selling nuclear secrets to Iran and Libya as well, was Abdul Qadeer Khan – a national hero in Pakistan, responsible for giving his own country a nuclear weapon.

The end product of Mr. Khan’s “nuclear supermarket” was delivered to the world Monday in North Korea’s first atomic explosion.

In detonating the bomb, Pyongyang almost certainly used technology it acquired from Pakistan. It has placed a harsh spotlight on Mr. Khan, who lives a comfortable life in Islamabad after being pardoned by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in 2004. He is confined to one of his several palatial homes, officially under house arrest but with full access to his vast fortune.

And it has shone an equally harsh light on the relationship between Pakistan and the United States, since Mr. Khan’s illicit sales to rogue states took place during a period when Washington was tolerating Islamabad’s nuclear ambitions. The United States has never sought punishment or sanctions against Mr. Khan or Pakistan for arming North Korea, even though the Central Intelligence Agency had reportedly been watching his activities since the 1970s – a period in which he built a vast business empire based on his nuclear sales to authoritarian states.

Pakistan has refused to allow Mr. Khan to be questioned. Asked Tuesday whether Washington has been interrogating Mr. Khan in the wake of the North Korean blast, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said: “I don’t know who’s talked to him lately. But he’s out of business, and that’s a good thing for nonproliferation efforts around the world.”

Mr. McCormack explained that Pakistan is not being blamed for nuclear proliferation in countries that were once described as the “axis of evil” because General Musharraf’s regime has co-operated with the U.S. war against terrorism.

“In terms of Pakistan, you have a country that has made the strategic decision to ally itself with those who are promoting freedom and democracy around the world,” the spokesman said. “. . . In the North Korea regime, you don’t have that. You have a regime that is actually going in the other direction.”

Pakistani officials also denied any connection between the North Korean blast and Mr. Khan’s black-market sales to the communist regime.

But Mr. Khan’s nuclear bazaar took place within the highest reaches of the Pakistani state; his company, Khan Research Laboratories, seemed to conduct sales for years with the knowledge and assent of the government in Islamabad.

Gen. Musharraf acknowledges in his newly published memoir, In the Line of Fire, that Mr. Khan’s activities aroused his suspicions in 1999.

“I received a report suggesting that some North Korean nuclear experts, under the guise of missile engineers, had arrived at Khan Research Laboratories and were being given secret briefings on centrifuges,” he writes. “It was becoming clearer by now that A. Q. [Khan] was not ‘part of the problem,’ but the problem itself.”

The nature of that problem was known to the United States and Pakistan in the 1970s, when Mr. Khan, a young metallurgist born in Bhopal, India, was hired by a uranium-enrichment laboratory in the Netherlands. A Dutch court later found that he had passed top-secret documents to Pakistani spies on several occasions, and Dutch officials have said that both the CIA and the Dutch government were aware of his theft of secrets as early as 1975. In 1976, he abruptly quit, taking blueprints for a uranium centrifuge with him. He was immediately named the head of Pakistan’s nuclear-weapons program.

His private company was deeply enmeshed with the state’s nuclear program. While its initial purpose was to procure nuclear-weapons components from other countries, it simultaneously became a tool for Mr. Khan’s personal enrichment, and the nuclear technology moved in both directions.

In the early 1990s, Mr. Khan reportedly made a deal to buy North Korea’s medium-range ballistic missiles, which Pakistan needed to carry the atomic bombs it was on the verge of developing. In exchange, Pakistan provided nuclear-weapons expertise. He also reportedly received payments for these deals.

The CIA monitored him throughout this time. But the United States declined to act, according to Khan biographer Gordon Corera, because Pakistan was considered a vital ally in the Cold War, and because nuclear proliferation was considered a reasonable price to pay for strong alliances.

It was only after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that U.S. officials asked Gen. Musharraf to put a stop to Mr. Khan’s sales. Even then – and even now – no further sanction was considered necessary.

This year, Mr. Khan began receiving treatment for prostate cancer at a private cancer hospital owned by Imran Khan, the cricket star turned politician. The former athlete said he provided the expensive treatment free of charge, explaining: “Whatever allegations Qadeer Khan is facing, he is our hero.”

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Canada’s nuclear role

Posted on October 11, 2006 by energyprbe

<by Tom Adams: a response to Doug Saunders’ article for the Globe and Mail

October 11, 2006

Re: Test puts nuclear salesman in harsh light<br

(Original article appears below)

Tom Adams, Executive Director, Energy Probe

Test puts nuclear salesman in harsh light

by Doug Saunders, Globe and Mail, October 10, 2006

The end product of Mr. Khan’s “nuclear supermarket” was delivered to the world Monday in North Korea’s first atomic explosion.

Pakistani officials also denied any connection between the North Korean blast and Mr. Khan’s black-market sales to the communist regime.

Gen. Musharraf acknowledges in his newly published memoir, In the Line of Fire, that Mr. Khan’s activities aroused his suspicions in 1999.

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SPEECH – An Expanded Commitment: DuPont and Sustainable Growth

Posted on October 1, 2006 by energyprbe

Chad Holliday, Chairman and CEO, DuPont

October 1, 2006

It’s a pleasure to be here today to discuss the imperative for an expanded commitment to sustainability and sustainable growth – for DuPont, for industry in general, and for all sectors of society.

Let me start with a perspective on DuPont. We are in our 204th year as an enterprise and have grown and moved in directions that our predecessors would find surprising. But what wouldn’t surprise them is the innovation and creativity – rooted in a foundation of values – that has taken us in those directions.

A Heritage of Innovation

We began as an explosives company. Our first patent in 1804 was signed by Thomas Jefferson and endorsed by James Madison. It was a machine for granulating gunpowder. Today we are on the leading edge of biotechnology and nanotechnology. When the U.S. government issued U.S. Patent 7,000,000 earlier this year, it was for a very different DuPont invention – a bio-based synthetic fiber derived from renewable resources.

In between, DuPont has been awarded patents for more than 34,000 inventions, many of which gave the modern age its look and feel and many of its most useful materials. The majority of those discoveries came in the second half of our history, with the pace rapidly accelerating the closer you get to the present. But you could say our patents represent, on average, a new innovation every other day for the past two centuries.

Today our innovation capability can best be described as dynamic science – science that is constantly anticipating and addressing market needs. For DuPont in the 21st century, dynamic science means using biology as well as chemistry and other scientific disciplines to develop sustainable products that address some of the world’s most pressing challenges.

To deliver those innovations to market, we have transformed our company several times in our history, constantly challenging ourselves with this question: Are we doing the right things to build a stronger company, help solve the world’s toughest challenges, and build a brighter future for people and our planet?

Examples of how we answered that question can be traced throughout our history as a company. In the DuPont archives there is a handwritten document from 1811 with our first safety rules. You also can read our first statement of environmental responsibility which was created in 1938. We answered the question again at the start of our most recent transformation to a science company when we said our mission is sustainable growth – putting our science to work to develop sustainable, global solutions, not only for our customers but for people everywhere.

There’s also something else that comes with 200 years of history – humility. As a company we have been through many experiences that remind us that we don’t have all the answers. When you have been making thousands of different products for more than two centuries, there are bound to be legacy issues. DuPont has them. We accept that society expects transparency and responsiveness on such issues, and we are committed to both in order to earn and keep the public’s trust.

Sustainability – An Evolving Idea

In order to do that, we have to keep pace with the evolving idea of sustainability. In the 1970s and 1980s our focus was on internal safety and meeting environmental regulations. In the late 1980s and 1990s we added voluntary footprint reductions, going beyond regulatory requirements. We looked to increase shareholder value with a goal of zero safety and environmental incidents as we decreased raw material and energy inputs into our products and reduced emissions at our manufacturing sites.
Now we see ourselves in a third phase of sustainable growth, characterized by a holistic approach that is fully integrated into our business models. In this phase, sustainability is broadened to include human safety as well as environmental protection, and it becomes our market-driven business priority throughout the value chain. The transition to products that meet the definition of “sustainable” will take place over time, for DuPont as well as for other companies such as General Electric and Wal-Mart. But the pace will quicken as the synergistic effects of market demand, societal expectations and product innovation create collaborations up and down the value chain. Sustainability will increasingly become central to the total value proposition. This will impact not only our business, but every customer and – through their products – every consumer we touch.

How to accomplish that is changing in this new century of sustainability. The view of scientists locked away in a laboratory inventing something new and wonderful to spring on the world has given way to a market-back approach. For innovation to be successfully introduced into the marketplace and accepted by society, it must be based on many forms of partnership and continuous dialogue with stakeholders, including governments, NGOs and academia. Science and innovation that does not address pressing human needs will not advance sustainability. Likewise a vision of sustainability detached from science and technology will not succeed. We need both the commitment to sustainability and the accomplishments of science.
But we never forget that we are a business, and our first job is to create value for our shareholders.

Sustainable growth means creating value for our shareholders and for society by developing products that the market demands – and which also are good for the environment and for the health, safety and well-being of people everywhere. Many companies say that what’s good for the environment can also be good for business. We have the view that what’s good for business must be good for the environment and for people worldwide or you are not moving toward sustainable growth.

Goals to Track Our Progress

To help keep us on that track, we have found it useful to create goals so everyone in the company knows what we’re aiming for and everyone outside the company can hold us to it.

We take such commitments very seriously.

For example, in 1994, we set a goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by the year 2000. We achieved that goal on schedule. Then we challenged ourselves to reduce our greenhouse emissions by 65 percent by 2010. We made that goal as well. In fact, we achieved a 72 percent reduction by 2004, six years ahead of schedule, and avoided costs of over $3 billion by holding our energy use six percent below 1990 levels.

We’ve been recognized for our efforts. An independent panel of experts assembled by BusinessWeek, for example, named DuPont the top green company of the past decade for our greenhouse gas reductions and our leadership in environmental management. But we don’t see recognition as a victory. We see it as confirmation that we’re moving in the right direction and as encouragement to continue.

2015 Sustainability Goals

Now we’ve created a new set of 2015 Sustainability Goals that renew and expand our commitment to sustainability. Our 2015 Sustainability Goals span every sector of our operations – from R&D to manufacturing to marketing.

They go beyond traditional footprint reductions to include goals that tie our business growth even more directly to the development of safer and environmentally improved products for the many global markets we serve – transportation, communications, construction and agriculture, to name a few. They also make sense from a business performance perspective because revenues from our current safety and environmental offerings are increasing at double our average revenue growth rate.

Market-Facing Goals

First and most important among this newest set of goals are what we call our market-facing goals. These build on markets and opportunities where we believe our integrated science capabilities in chemistry, biology and materials science can make a difference for our shareholders and society. F
or example, not only will we work to develop alternative fuels, but we also will create products that help make the use of those fuels more efficient. We have four market-facing goals:

By 2015, DuPont will double our investment in R&D programs with direct, quantifiable environmental benefits for our customers and consumers along our value chains.

By 2015, DuPont will grow our annual revenues by at least $2 billion from products that create energy efficiency and/or significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions for our customers. We estimate these products will contribute at least 40 million tonnes of additional CO2 equivalent reductions by our customers and consumers.

By 2015, DuPont will nearly double our revenues from non-depletable resources to at least $8 billion.

DuPont will enhance our focus on protecting people. We will increase the amount of R&D spent on developing and bringing to market new products that will protect people from harm or threats. Between now and 2015, we will introduce at least 1,000 new products or services that help make people safer globally.

Footprint Goals

To intensify our ongoing efforts to minimize the environmental impact of our operations around the world, we have updated and expanded what we call our footprint goals:

Since 1990, DuPont has reduced our global greenhouse gas emissions measured as CO2 equivalents by 72%. By 2015, we will further reduce our greenhouse gas emissions at least 15% from a base year of 2004.

DuPont commits to reducing water consumption by at least 30% over the next ten years at our global sites that are located where the renewable freshwater supply is either scarce or stressed as determined by the United Nations analysis of river basins globally. For all other sites, DuPont will hold water consumption flat on an absolute basis through the year 2015, offsetting any increased demand from production volume growth through conservation, reuse and recycle practices.

DuPont will introduce fleet vehicles that represent the leading technologies for fuel efficiency and fossil fuel alternatives. By 2015, we will ensure that 100% of our off-site fleet of cars and light trucks meet these criteria. We will continue to ensure these vehicles are safe as well as fuel efficient, and we will track and report on our fuel efficiency improvements.

Since 1990, DuPont has reduced our global air carcinogen emissions by 92%, well beyond legal requirements. By 2015, we will further reduce our air carcinogen emissions at least 50% from a base year of 2004. This will bring our total reductions since 1990 to 96%.

By 2015, DuPont will ensure that 100% of our global manufacturing sites have successfully completed an independent third-party verification of the effectiveness of their environmental management goals and systems. We will make this information publicly available and communicate it to our local communities.

To achieve these goals, we’re relying on the power of One DuPont – the creativity and commitment of our 60,000 employees around the world. But it’s also going to take partners who share our commitment and have the influence and ability to take actions that will make a difference in achieving a safe and sustainable world. Because of the nature of DuPont’s products and services, we sell into virtually every major industry in the world. As an ingredient supplier in countless value chains, we have a broad and deep impact on global industries and therefore on global society.

In some of those value chains, we already see opportunities for sustainable growth unfolding. Let me describe some of the exciting developments in three areas of current activity – biotechnology, bio-based materials and safety.

Biotechnology

Biotechnology holds great promise to enhance our lives and the planet. In the 20th century, DuPont used chemistry to transform natural processes and materials into manmade materials based largely on petroleum feedstocks. In the 21st century, we are using nature’s own processes to produce materials that are based on renewable feedstocks that can be produced and used in a sustainable manner. With a world population expected to reach nearly 9 billion by 2050, biotechnology offers the potential for sustainable living, healthy eating and battling diseases while reducing environmental impact on the planet.

We believe the broad field of biotechnology presents important opportunities that should be explored and developed to identify those safe and commercially viable applications that bring benefits to society. These opportunities span food, materials, energy generation, sensors and electronics. Benefits include lower cost, higher quality products and reduced reliance on fossil fuels, among other environmental benefits.

We are committed to improving our understanding of how to grow more nutritious food, particularly in areas that, because of soil composition or drought, pose an agricultural challenge. For example, our Pioneer Hi-Bred International subsidiary uses advanced plant genetics to develop field crops that are more productive, of higher quality, more nutritious and better suited for specific uses.

Pioneer® brand low linolenic soybeans are used to produce soybean oil that eliminates the need for hydrogenation, a process that creates trans fats, which have been linked to heart disease and other health concerns.

Bio-Based Materials

A direct product of our biotechnology is our work in bio-based materials. A few months ago, we announced a partnership with BP to create a new generation of biofuels that can be produced from locally grown crops containing sugar – like corn in North America, sugar beets in Europe, and sugar cane in Brazil.

These biofuels will help reduce the world’s dependence on oil while also providing economic opportunity to local farmers. We expect to commercialize products in the U.K. next year. Separately, we are developing seeds to increase the production of alternative fuels.

Our intent is for DuPont to become a major player in bringing biofuels to market in a way that promotes sustainable agriculture. Sustainable agriculture is a goal that demands partnerships across multiple sectors, and we currently are in discussions in the United States and Brazil to identify NGOs with whom we can partner in pursuit of this objective. We want to make sure that the development of biofuels is accomplished in a way that does not take food out of some peoples’ mouths to put gasoline into other peoples’ cars.

We also are tapping into a multi-year research and development partnership with MIT focusing on bio-based materials and technologies, including fine chemicals, monomers, biopolymers and biomodified polymers.

Our joint venture with Tate & Lyle of the U.K. is developing a bio-based process for creating a major ingredient for our Sorona® polymers, our newest polymer platform. The bio-route to this polymer uses 40 percent less energy and will save the equivalent of 10 million gallons of gas annually – enough to power 22,000 cars a year. The first manufacturing facility for what we call Bio-PDO^TM will start up later this year in Loudon, Tennessee, with commercial product available early next year.

Our plan is to brand our product line of high-performance materials made with renewable resources, so that our customers can easily identify and select DuPont Renewable Materials. This will include Sorona® as well as engineering polymers, coatings and elastomers based on renewable materials.

Progress Throughout DuPont

We also are aiming to make further progress in improving the environmental profile of our traditional product lines. For example, our R&D pipeline is delivering next-generation refrigerants with lower greenhouse warming potential; new automotive finishes with lower VOC content; and enhanced solutions to improve solar module lifecycle and efficiency, building on our experience with eight DuPont prod
ucts currently used in photovoltaic solar panels.

Safety

Because of our unique tradition of safety at DuPont, the third area where I believe DuPont will make a sustainable growth difference is in safety. At DuPont, sustainability is not just about being an environmentally smarter company. It’s also about protecting people and keeping them safe.

We have many current product offerings that protect people, with many more in development. We are confident that the power of DuPont science will put us on a path to meet our 2015 goal of 1,000 new products or services that help make people safer.

You know Kevlar® as a 40-year-old product that is used in protective vests where it has saved the lives of 3,000 police and security officers. What you may not know is that Kevlar® – a lightweight aramid fiber that is five times as strong as steel – also is used to reinforce high-performance automobile tires sold by Goodyear. And it is being used to protect people from tornadoes and hurricanes through the DuPont ^TM StormRoom^TM with Kevlar® that can stop a 2×4 traveling at over 200 miles per hour.

We recently announced a $100 million global investment in our Nomex® business. You probably know Nomex® as a flame-resistant aramid fiber that protects firefighters and emergency workers around the world. It’s also widely used in aircraft interiors, train upholstery, as electrical insulation, and is now seeing growing use in providing safe and reliable wind power in countries like China.

Because of products like Kevlar® and Nomex®, we’ve seen the market for personal protection products continue to grow around the world. We’re building on that strong base with innovations that address the increasing threats facing people and property from weather, attack and accidents.

The threat of avian flu poses a significant and serious challenge to countries around the world. As part of our safety offering, we will be marketing personal BioSecurity kits that include DuPont disinfectants and wipes. Our Virkon® S disinfectant has been independently tested by the Harbin Veterinary Research Institute in China, and was proven to be effective against the H5N1 avian flu virus.

In fact, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization has asked us to provide initial supplies of Virkon® S to meet the short-term needs in 69 nations, where it is needed most to help governments and farmers prevent avian flu from spreading.

Safety is paramount in the early development of products and technologies. We will not be sustainable if the technologies we are developing and their applications throughout the value chain are not introduced to the market in a safe manner.

Partnerships are critical to achieving this objective. An example of this is the work we are doing with Environmental Defense to understand potential risks of the emerging field of nanotechnology as it gains broader application. We are developing a framework for responsible development, production, use and disposal of nano-scale materials critical to “next-generation” communications devices and other products.

Also, our longstanding partnership with Public Citizen on automotive safety has been instrumental in the development of products and processes that help keep people safe while on the road.

These are just a few examples that show how sustainable growth is not a distant goal, but an immediate reality. For DuPont, 2015 begins today. Sustainable growth is about products and services we are working on right now. Our 2015 Sustainability Goals are our investment in the future of our business, the future of our customers, and the future of families around the world. They are also about the future of our planet – the one we live on today and the better, safer and healthier planet we aspire to leave for tomorrow.

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Small-scale plants run rings around nuclear

Posted on September 29, 2006 by energyprbe

Lawrence Solomon
National Post
September 29, 2006

“If we don’t go nuclear, what type of energy will meet our future energy needs,” I’m often asked. “Do you think fringe fuels such as solar energy can take the place of nuclear? Or windmills? Bio fuels? Small dams? Tidal power? Burning garbage?”

My answer is “all of the above.” It rarely satisfies my questioner, who thinks I’m evading the question; neither does the question, which reflects a historical one-size fits-all bias, sit well with me.

For the last century, in most of the developed world, the only providers of power have been government-backed monopolies, both public and private. Being monopolies, they didn’t need to worry unduly about pleasing either their customers or their suppliers. Their primary concern was pleasing themselves.

Convenience ruled. When Ontario Hydro tired of managing its small hydro dams around the province, it dynamited or otherwise decommissioned hundreds of them. The far-flung dams were a hassle to run from afar, and also administratively expensive to manage from its Toronto head office. Hydro favoured big, centralized coal plants then, just as it would later favour big, centralized nuclear plants.

Likewise, other utilities in other parts of the continent closed down the windmills that once were common, and squelched independent power producers small and large who wanted to bring power to market. Among the larger concerns that they squelched was Fiat, the automotive giant, which in the 1980s manufactured home power plants able to run on any liquid or gaseous fuel.

The central planners at the state monopolies favoured a few large central generating plants over countless small ones, for administrative ease. Yet electricity production is inherently decentralized; different regions have different fuels at the ready, different industries have different power wants and, often, power-producing abilities of their own. The monopolies have had great success in suppressing decentralized power systems. But despite the restraints, small-scale power plants remained so attractive that they not only survived, they thrived, gaining market share against their heavily subsidized nuclear competitor.

Add up all the output from the world’s small-scale power plants and you find that they now total more than the world’s output from nuclear reactors. You also find that they are growing faster than nuclear plants – in 2004, they added about three times as much output, and six times as much generating capacity, as nuclear power added to the world’s electricity systems.

The gap will only increase in future. According to estimates from official bodies such as the International Energy Agency and World Nuclear Association, compiled by Amory Lovins at the Rocky Mountain Institute, within five years new nuclear additions will be dwarfed by any number of small-scale power technologies, including solar photovoltaics (the same technology that powers calculators). Small-scale cogeneration and wind power, which are becoming large players in the world electricity market, will each provide 20 to 30 times as much new capacity as nuclear plants.

In many countries, small-scale power plants have already made their presence felt big time. They now provide half of the electricity generated in Denmark, almost 40% of the generation in the Netherlands and Finland, 30% of Russia’s and between 15% and 20% of the electricity generated in Germany, Japan, Poland and China. Most remarkably, these large market shares came about despite resistance from the power monopolies: Some of them are token projects, built by the monopoly to preempt private competitors who were seeking permission to enter the electricity business, or in response to public pressure; some are public-private partnerships that had to surmount monopoly opposition; and some of them aren’t utility projects at all, but free-market power plants developed by businesses capitalizing on cost-saving opportunities to provide power for their own needs.

While many of the monopoly-built plants required subsidies, many more were economical yet rejected by the monopoly. Without the monopoly utility deciding who can produce power and who can’t, small-scale private producers would dominate the marketplace. Large buildings and shopping centres would routinely be generating their own power, just as they now produce their own heat. Just about the only technology that wouldn’t have a future in a de-monopolized, de-subsidized power system would be nuclear power.

Lawrence Solomon, author of the forthcoming book Toronto Sprawls, is executive director of Urban Renaissance Institute and Consumer Policy Institute, divisions of Energy Probe Research Foundation.;

Posted in Energy Probe News, Reforming Ontario's Local Electrical Distribution Sector, Renewables | Leave a comment