Energy Probe

Bhabha atomic reactor refurbished

Posted on October 18, 2002 by energyprbe

Times of India
October 18, 2002

Mumbai — The Cirus nuclear research reactor at the BARC has been reborn. The refurbishment of the reactor, which is nearly 40 years old, was completed recently after approximately five years, BARC’s reactor group director S.K. Sharma said.

Systems are now being tested and the reactor is likely to be formally recommissioned by the end of this month. The reactor will remain operational for the next 15 years to 20 years.

He said that the refurbishment involved upgrading safety systems and replacing old parts. “This was done at a fraction of the cost of building a new facility having a similar capacity,” he said.

Posted in Nuclear Economics | Tagged nuclear costs | Leave a comment

How to do Kyoto on the cheap

Posted on October 16, 2002 by energyprbe

Andrew Coyne
National Post
October 16, 2002

This just in from the Kyoto doom watch: The global climate accord, the one Alberta’s environment minister warns would sound the “death knell” for the Canadian economy, is now forecast to cost an astounding, stupendous, catastrophic . . . $5-billion. That’s measured, not against current output, but as a reduction in expected economic growth over the next eight years.

Those are the latest figures from the federal government: On the most probable set of assumptions, a reduction in economic growth of 0.4%, or about 61,000 jobs. To put the latter figure in perspective, that’s about as many jobs as the economy currently spins off every six weeks. True, the feds also produced a “worst-case” scenario. Brace yourself: If everything that can go wrong does, the economy could be 1. 6% smaller eight years from now than it would otherwise have been. Oh, the humanity …

It is getting harder and harder for Kyoto’s critics to sustain the illusion that Canada’s participation in the treaty would bring on some kind of biblical disaster. It may be that the science is uncertain – while many credible scientists believe that global warming is a reality, that we caused it, and that its effects will be calamitous, many others think the contrary – but most of the critics have given up that fight. Rather, they concede that global warming is real, but say the costs of fighting it would cripple the economy. It is increasingly difficult to say that with a straight face.

Yet in one sense the critics are right: The costs of Kyoto are almost certain to be much higher than they need to be. If so, the critics themselves can take much of the credit. It’s probably too late to derail ratification of the accord altogether. But they may yet succeed in stampeding the government into adopting a plan for reducing carbon dioxide emissions that, while more costly to the country overall, shifts much of the costs away from the industries that are responsible for most of the emissions and onto the general public. Who knows – that may even have been the point of the exercise.

This is no mere speculation. It was evident as long ago as last April, when Ottawa released a discussion paper offering four options for achieving the required emissions reductions

– about 240 megatonnes, from a projected 809 MT. What was clear from the paper was that the simplest option was by far the least costly. This would have achieved most of the reductions by means of a “cap-and-trade” system, auctioning off a limited quantity of emissions permits, and requiring firms to purchase rights to emit in excess of their allotted quotas on the open market.

In practice, this would have meant the international market, assuming such a mechanism can be constructed, since the cost of reducing emissions is likely to be much lower in countries using relatively “dirty” technologies, such as coal, than in Canada. Assuming a market price for permits of $10 a tonne – the best guess of most experts – the paper predicted industry would purchase 128 MT in credit for emissions reductions achieved abroad, while domestic reductions accounted for just 16 MT.

The paper also included three other options, which placed less reliance on tradable emissions permits and more on so-called “targeted measures” – subsidies to encourage industry and consumers to reduce their emissions, or regulatory measures to the same effect. Yet it was clear from the government’s own figures that these must be more costly: Not only do they focus on forcing reductions in domestic emissions, rather than purchasing cheaper credits overseas, but they do so only by such means as occur to the regulators, rather than leaving it up to consumers and industry to come up with newer and less costly ways of achieving the same result.

Subsidizing producers to reduce their emissions is a particularly inefficient approach: It may encourage them to produce in ways that emit less CO2, but it doesn’t get around the fact that you are subsidizing them to emit CO2. But it does have the cardinal political virtue of spreading – and disguising – the costs. Instead of making firms pay for every megatonne they emit, the general public is forced to pay them for every megatonne they don’t emit. Lo and behold, the government hinted strongly it was leaning in this direction. Even Option 1, the cheapest option, contained a large admixture of such “targeted measures.”

Yet as a recent study by the C.D. Howe Institute observes, there are even cheaper options. Suppose the government levied a carbon dioxide tax on all fossil fuels at a rate of $10 a tonne, which would yield (so the economic models predict) about 30 MT in domestic emissions reductions. It could use the proceeds to buy the other 210 MT on the international market, at a cost of $2.1-billion, and still have money left over with which to cut everybody’s income taxes. The net cost to the economy: almost nil.

This is the real Kyoto scandal: not that the government is proceeding with the accord, but that it is doing so in much costlier ways than necessary. And we have Kyoto’s critics to thank for that.

Andrew Coyne is a columnist for the National Post and a member of Energy Probe Research Foundation’s board of directors. Energy Probe is a division of Energy Probe Research Foundation.

Posted in Costs, Benefits and Risks | Leave a comment

Hydro bills pack power punch

Posted on October 10, 2002 by energyprbe

Michael Prentice
Ottawa Citizen
October 10, 2002

Tom Adams, director of the consumer group Energy Probe, says Ontario electricity consumers can likely expect rebates of $100 or more to offset unexpected spikes in prices in the wake of deregulation. Photo credit: Randy Quan, Ottawa Citizen

A hot summer has added up to record-high electricity bills for many Ottawa homeowners.

Homeowners have been shocked by electricity bills of more than $200 for the two-month-period covering July and August.

Some are finding their electricity bills are more than 50 per cent higher than they paid in the same two-month period in the summer of 2001.

The cause of the dramatic increase in the amount of the bills is above-average consumption, due to air conditioner use in extended spells of torrid heat, combined with sharply higher electricity rates.

A typical customer of Hydro Ottawa paid about $233, all charges and taxes included, for the two-month period from July 10 to Sept. 10, Ottawa Hydro said yesterday. That was for 1,800 kilowatt hours of electricity.

Heat waves in that period pushed up consumption by about 18 per cent over the same period last year.

With last year’s lower consumption and prices, the same homeowner paid about $145 for the same period, by Hydro Ottawa’s reckoning.

And there was no relief for September.

Hydro Ottawa said yesterday its electricity price averaged almost 9.5 cents per kilowatt hour in the first three weeks of September. That was almost three times the price in May and June, when the average was slightly below 3.4 cents per kilowatt hour after the market was opened to competition.

But there is good news – at least for some consumers, said Tom Adams, director of Energy Probe.

Many homeowners are likely to get a rebate of $100 or more next spring of part of the higher cost they now pay for electricity, the provincial government says.

The rebate is for the homeowner who buys electricity from a hydro utility, Mr. Adams said yesterday.

The government provided for the rebate to offset part of any increase in electricity prices following its decision to open electricity to wholesale and retail competition last May, he said.

Most of Ontario’s electricity is produced by Ontario Power Generation, owned by the provincial government.

Government rules stipulate that, if the agency earns more than 3.8 cents per kilowatt hour, it must refund the excess to its customers. The rule is in place for four years, to encourage Ontario Power Generation to sell or lease generating capacity.

However, consumers who purchase electricity from an independent retailer are unlikely to get the rebate.

Independent retailers, which offer electricity for periods up to five years at fixed rates, are under no obligation to pass on any rebate to their customers, Mr. Adams said.

The cost of electricity accounts for slightly more than half a hydro bill. The rest is for transmission, delivery and repayment of huge debts accumulated by Ontario Hydro during years of inefficient operation.

These related costs have also increased, by an estimated 15-20 per cent over the past three years, said Mr. Adams.

The refund will be paid at the end of April 2003, after the first year of market competition. It will be distributed according to how much a consumer used.

Mr. Adams estimated the refund would be at least one cent per kilowatt hour. Since May, the price of electricity has averaged about 5.5 cents a kilowatt hour.

So, with the refund, Mr. Adams said, electricity prices so far average about the same as the 4.3 cents per kilowatt hour fixed price that existed prior to competition.

Mr. Adams said his advice to consumers is to purchase electricity from their hydro utility, and not to sign a contract with an independent retailer, which typically charges a fixed rate of about six cents per kilowatt hour for terms up to five years.

He blamed indecision by the Ontario government for shortages of electricity that occurred this summer and which may occur again next summer, according to the Independent Electricity Market Operator, which runs the system.

Earlier this week, the provincial government refused to rule out the possibility of blackouts or brownouts.

“We went through the hottest summer in 50 years, the system was strained but the system worked,” sid Energy Minister John Baird.

The government has hesitated to move to a free market for production of electricity, and this has discouraged private investment, he said.

Posted in Power Generation in Ontario | Leave a comment

Re "Keeping the lights on"

Posted on October 9, 2002 by Other News Sources

Myron Gordon and John Wilson
Letters
October 9, 2002

Myron Gordon and John Wilson, who have been working for various unions to promote nuclear power and a continuation of the Crown-owned electric monopolies, are advising New Brunswickers to continue their dependence on the trouble-prone Point Lepreau reactor and to avoid competition.

Gordon and Wilson have big credibility problems. For years, these two have been claiming that nuclear power plants are and will be vastly profitable. When Ontario leased its Bruce nuclear complex to a consortium led by British Energy, Gordon and Wilson claimed that $20 billion had been “literally given away.” Their claims were closely studied by Ontario’s provincial auditor, who reported earlier this year that the lease, which brings in a pitiful sum barely enough to cover clean-up costs, was in fact fair value.

The U.K. government’s competitive restructuring of its formerly government-owned electricity sector – called a “disaster” by Gordon and Wilson – resulted in rate cuts for households of 30%, big cuts in air pollution, and big improvements in service quality for poor people. The U.K.’s move toward markets also cut through the fog of government financial reporting and proved the truth of nuclear economics. The nuclear industry there is now on the edge of bankruptcy despite massive subsidies. Only pro-nuclear ideologues could call the U.K.’s competitive reforms a “disaster.”

Gordon and Wilson are now complaining about the Public Utility Board’s analysis of the Point Lepreau renovation proposal. Perhaps the reason they decided not to appear before that tribunal to defend their fringe economic theories was the prospect of being subject to cross-examination by those who might have read the Ontario provincial auditor’s report.
Tom Adams, Executive Director, Energy Probe

Posted in New Brunswick Power | Leave a comment

Corn-based fuel

Posted on October 9, 2002 by energyprbe

Lawrence Solomon
National Post
October 9, 2002

Letters re: The Corn Isn’t Green, Lawrence Solomon, Sept. 25.
I am advisor to the board of directors of Integrated Grain Processors Cooperative, an Ontario-based farmer-owned cooperative exploring the construction of an ethanol production facility in the province. As someone who has been involved in the fuel ethanol industry for over 20 years, I felt compelled to respond to Mr. Solomon’s article. The article is so riddled with misinformation it is difficult to know where to begin.There are four points that I would like to make. First, ethanol is the only liquid automotive fuel that has a net positive greenhouse gas reduction benefit. There have been numerous studies conducted that demonstrate the uptake of C0₂ by the corn plant is greater than the amount of C0₂ generated by the production of ethanol. Of course, we all know that fossil fuels of any kind cannot make that claim. We can provide a number of credible studies from the U.S. Federal Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy and others, that substantiate ethanol’s greenhouse gas reduction benefits.Second, it’s unfortunate that the writer chose to use only a study done by David Pimentel of Cornell as his major reference. That report has literally been ignored as biased, inaccurate and without merit by much of the scientific community. The assumptions were inaccurate, the data used were grossly outdated and the methodology was flawed. The only ones who have given any credit to the report are those who are trying desperately to build a case against ethanol, which is why the report was produced in the first place.Third, there have been at least 10 separate studies done by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of Energy, the internationally recognized environmental watchdog organization the Institute for Local Self Reliance, and several national laboratories. All have demonstrated that ethanol has a net energy gain from field to fuel tank of over 20%.Finally, the food vs. fuel issue was addressed 20 years ago. Ethanol does not use food to make fuel. In fact, it enhances the food value of the corn. Only the starch is used to make ethanol, the balance is a high-protein, high-fibre feed supplement for dairy, beef, poultry and swine. It’s not more expensive than corn, it is only more concentrated than whole corn. It does not drive up the price of beef or chicken or any other livestock it is fed to. That is a totally false and misleading statement.Farmers are not growing more corn because of ethanol; they are simply creating a new value-added market for the corn that they already grow. Fertilizer and chemical use have been dramatically reduced in the past 20 years. Farmers have depended on the land for their livelihood for generations and hope their heirs will have to opportunity to follow in their footsteps. As a result, they are keenly aware of the importance of responsible land stewardship and work hard to minimize the use of chemicals and fertilizers.For Mr. Solomon to take a widely discredited study, and use it to spread false and misleading information about an environmentally sound, renewable fuel like ethanol is troublesome to say the least. – Mike Bryan, president and CEO, BBI International _____

Mr. Solomon’s objections to ethanol are based almost completely on arguments provided by Dr. Pimentel, well-known adversary of the renewable fuels movement, whose 1998 study draws primarily on old data and completely dismisses the energy value of ethanol’s primary co-products. Dr. Pimentel’s work has been widely refuted by a diverse group of academic and agricultural experts.

In recent years, tremendous gains in efficiency have been achieved in both crop and ethanol production processing. In August of this year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released a new study showing that ethanol production yields 34% more energy than is used in growing and harvesting grain and distilling it into ethanol. Significantly increased energy gains over findings from their 1995 study are attributed to higher corn yields, lower energy use in the fertilizer industry and advances in fuel conversion technologies.Ethanol also provides other significant environmental and social benefits, including improved air quality, reduced reliance on non-renewable energy sources, diversification of agricultural markets and rural economic development. Co-products that result from the ethanol production process include a high-protein feed that helps to keep livestock feed costs low.Contrary to Mr. Solomon’s allegations, corn farmers in Ontario have implemented a number of initiatives to reduce the environmental impact of corn production, including reduced tillage or no-till production to protect soil integrity, reduced pesticide use and the implementation of nutrient management plans to ensure that corn crops receive only the nutrients and protection that they need to thrive and that our water sources are protected.Since farmers do not irrigate field corn in Ontario, Mr. Solomon’s attack on corn-based ethanol on the basis of the resultant groundwater depletion and fertilizer pollution are somewhat curious. Even more so is his suggestion that increased ethanol production results in higher costs for livestock feed (and hence for consumer food products). That comes as quite a surprise to corn farmers: Despite increasing costs, and with no adjustments for inflation, corn prices are lower now than they were in 1980. – Dennis Jack, president, Ontario Corn Producers’ Association_____

I thought Mr. Solomon made some interesting points in his article, but was very much off base in his assessment and valuation.

When we think about oil stocks being depleted in 70 to 80 years, (seems like a long time, but really is not) we need to seriously work on alternatives. Ethanol from corn is one option – probably not that economical today but getting more efficient.Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada may support this program, however they have a significant research arm that focuses on many aspects of alternatives for petroleum. Recently, the city of Saskatoon commissioned two buses to test out a biodiesel from canola (more efficient, less polluting), researched by AAFC and the Saskatoon research community. It is being commercialized by a group of farmers.Mr. Solomon may be concerned about the ethanol of today, but if so, he should be talking about other alternatives – petroleum will not be around forever if we keep using it at the rates we do today.Surprisingly, this is one area where Canada can be a global leader – improved alternative green fuels from Biomass, part of the bio-based economy. I think our agricultural research community should be commended for taking these initiatives that will lead to a better environment. – Dr. Murray McLaughlin, Guelph, Ont.

. . . or cornball critics

Two decades ago, David Pimentel released a startling study for the United States Department of Energy showing that making ethanol consumes far more energy than the ethanol contains. The agency – to confirm his findings – had 26 of its top scientists review his study before its release, but that didn’t satisfy Dr. Pimentel’s critics.

The United States Department of Agriculture, food giant Archer-Daniel-Midlands and others in the corn lobby vilified him, and congressmen from corn states demanded that the federal government’s watchdog, the General Accounting Office, thoroughly investigate his findings. The GAO spent 20 times as much money reviewing Dr. Pimentel’s work as Dr. Pimentel’s own team did in creating the original study. After dissecting his methodology and scrutinizing every figure, the GAO, too, endorsed Dr. Pimentel’s findings.

Two decades later, the corn and ethanol lobby is still at it. The critics that appear elsewhere on this page state that Dr. Pimentel, apart from being dead wrong, is biased, grossly outdated, incompetent, and devoid of credibility in the scientific community. Instead of putting our trust in this sham of a scientist – just about the only person in the universe who seems to find ethanol lacking, they imply – believe the bushel of counterstudies produced by the real experts.

The critics protest too much and their studies, like many things available by the bushel, aren’t worth that much. The critics fault Dr. Pimentel’s methodology while they ignore data – such as corn yields from less productive states – that doesn’t serve their interests. The critics fault him for using out-of-date data in his recent study, which relied primarily on year 2000 data, while the studies his critics cite use primarily older data – a commonly cited Department of Agriculture study, for example, uses 1990 to 1993 data. The critics accuse Dr. Pimentel of having a vested interest in his recent criticisms of ethanol, when the results of his research, which was funded by the College of Agriculture at Cornell University, came as a blow to the many pro-ethanol interests associated with agricultural colleges. Meanwhile, the ethanol studies that refute Dr. Pimentel’s findings have been conducted by government departments, farm interests and ethanol industries, all of which have a vested interest in converting corn to ethanol. None of their studies count all the energy costs associated with ethanol, as Dr. Pimentel has.

Many of the ethanol industry’s consultants, scientists and other experts are doubtless competent, as are the government scientists that have taken runs at Dr. Pimentel’s findings. The Oxford, MIT and Cornell-educated Dr. Pimentel, however, is in another league. He produced his initial study as chairman of the Gasohol Study Group, a task force convened by the Reagan Administration in 1980 to investigate the efficiency of ethanol production. Formerly a White House advisor to president Nixon, he helped establish the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Dr. Pimentel, far from being a widely discredited scientist, has been chairman of the Environmental Studies Board in the National Academy of Sciences, he has served on 12 of their distinguished panels, and he is internationally renowned as one of the best in his field. Last October, his ethanol findings were published in the 2001 edition of the Encyclopedia for Physical Sciences and Technology, a peer-reviewed publication. The criticisms from his opponents are as outrageous as they are self-serving.

Dr. Pimentel’s critics also tout ethanol’s benefits in combatting air pollution. While ethanol does have some beneficial attributes – it replaces potentially harmful agents such as MMT and MTBE, and reduces carbon monoxide emissions – ethanol’s environmental drawbacks may entirely counter the benefits. Ethanol produces suspected carcinogens such as aldehydes and just as many nitrous oxides as its competitors. Last week, in a settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency for violations of the Clean Air Act, 12 ethanol plants agreed to pay fines and install devices called thermal oxidizers to reduce emissions. Ironically, the energy these oxidizers will burn will make ethanol an even greater energy glutton, and an even greater economic boondoggle.

To read Larry’s original article, “The Corn Isn’t Green,” please see: http://www.urban-renaissance.org/urbanren/index.cfm?DSP=content&ContentID=5515

Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Urban Renaissance Institute, a division of Energy Probe Research Foundation

Posted in Renewables | Leave a comment

Grass Biofuel Pellets

Posted on September 22, 2002 by energyprbe

September 22, 2002

An ecological response to North
America’s energy concerns

BIOENERGY 2002, Sept. 22-26, 2002, Boise, Idaho

R. Samson^*a, R. Jannascha^a, T. Adams^b and C. Ho Lem^a
^aResource Efficient Agricultural Production-Canada
Box 125, Ste Anne de Bellevue, Quebec
Canada J7V 7P2
http://www.reap-canada.com/
Tel. (514) 398-7743 Fax (514) 398-7972; Roger Samson
^bEnergy Probe, 225 Brunswick Ave. Toronto, Ontario
Canada M5S 2M6
http://www.energyprobe.org
Tel. (416) 964-9223 Fax (416) 964-8239

Introduction
Unprecedented opportunities for biofuel development are occurring as a result of a combination of factors including: rising oil, natural gas and electricity costs, energy security concerns in the U.S., and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The 1.1 billion acres of farmland in North America could help mitigate these concerns if currently viable biofuel production systems were expanded. In most agricultural regions, warm season grasses such as switchgrass can be successfully grown at a cost of USD $2-$3/GJ. Much of this farmland can collect 100-250 GJ of energy per hectare with existing production technology and plant materials. Efforts have been made to produce power and liquid fuels from this material, but the development strategies demonstrated so far appear to be sustainable only with subsidies. Converting this feedstock into a viable energy option suitable for widespread application requires an energetically efficient, economical, and convenient energy transformation pathway to meet consumer energy needs.

Finding Energy Farming’s Comparative Advantage
The recent development of “close coupled” gasifier pellet stoves and furnaces capable of burning moderately high ash pelleted agricultural fuels provides a completely new fuel cycle for energy farming development¹. When burned in the gasifier stoves and furnaces, pelleted switchgrass provides fuel conversion efficiencies and particulate emissions in the same range as modern oil furnaces. Each GJ of grass pellet energy delivered to consumers thus directly substitutes for one GJ of delivered oil and can be utilized on a large scale without significant air pollution. The pelletized grass biofuel systems builds on, and is likely to overtake, the existing wood pellet heating industry, which is rapidly developing without any significant level of government intervention.

Pelletized grass biofuel is poised to become a major fuel source because this fuel pathway is capable of meeting some heating requirements at less cost than all available alternatives. The cost-effectiveness of pelletized grass as a fuel results from:

Efficient use of low cost marginal
farmland for solar energy collection;

Minimal fossil fuel input use in field
production and energy conversion;

Minimal biomass quality upgrading which limits
energy loss from the feedstock;

Efficient combustion in advanced yet modestly
priced and simple to use devices;

Replacement of expensive high-grade energy
forms in space and water heating.

Contrary to the prevailing wisdom that reducing greenhouse gas emissions will raise societal energy costs, pelletized biofuels can provide consumers with lower and more stable heating costs while dramatically cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Given that agricultural commodity prices are declining in real dollars, pellet fuels are likely to become cheaper over time. By contrast, wood-based pellets have been rising in cost due to ongoing improvement in industrial wood utilization which is reducing the waste fraction of delivered roundwood. Furthermore, the development of a grass pellet biofuel industry has great potential to revitalize the rural economy of North America by absorbing the surplus production capacity of the agricultural sector and cutting on-farm fuel costs in heating intensive sectors like greenhouses.

The Potential for Energy Farming with Grasses
Of the farmland in North America (932 million acres in the U.S. and 168 million acres in Canada), we estimate that 150 million acres could be dedicated to energy farming without appreciably affecting North America’s food production capacity. Assuming biomass energy crop yields are 50% higher than the current harvested hay yields, harvested perennial grass yields of 5.9 and 8.1 tonnes/ha in Canada and the U.S. respectively can be expected. By energy farming 130 million acres in the U.S. and 23.4 million acres in Canada, a total production capacity of 424 and 55 million tonnes could be achieved in the two respective countries. Assuming grass fuel pellets contain 18.5 GJ of energy/tonne, 8.9 billion GJ (an energy equivalent of 1.5 billion barrels of oil) could be produced each year from energy crop production on 14% of North American farmland. With U.S. crude oil imports of approximately 3.4 billion barrels per year, the U.S. could displace the equivalent of 39% of its oil imports by growing biofuels on 14% of its farmland.

The Economics of Pelleted Biofuels
The most promising regions to develop a grass pellet fuel industry are those where hay production costs are low (generally indicated by low land rent) and heating costs are high due to a long winter heating period and high fossil fuel costs. Based on hay prices, land costs and warm season grass performance data in North America, and the relative winter heat costs of the various regions of North America, the best regions are the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the provinces of Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec.

An ideal location for a biofuel pellet industry is the province of Manitoba. This largely agricultural region has amongst the lowest hay prices in North America and no indigenous fossil energy reserves. The spread between delivered heat costs of conventional energy sources and hay costs is rapidly growing. In real dollars, long-term hay prices remain flat at USD$2/GJ (USD35$/tonne) while delivered heat costs for natural gas, oil and electricity are rising and are now in the USD$10-$13/GJ range. With current pellet production costs estimated to be $2/GJ (USD$35/tonne) and a conversion efficiency of 80%, delivered heat costs for on-farm and residential grass pellet fuels are projected to be in the USD$5-$7.50/GJ range. There are major opportunities for Manitoba households to switch from electrical heating (used by 32% of households) to biofuel heating systems. Widespread implementation of this energy substitution strategy would enable hydro-rich regions such as Manitoba and Quebec to expand electricity exports into the U.S. market.

Summary
This paper makes the case that the easiest way to move biomass energy ahead in North America in the future is to focus on the development of pelletized grass biofuels as an ecological substitute for high-grade energy forms such as oil, natural gas and electricity in heat-related energy applications. North American energy markets could be profoundly transformed by the development of a large scale, pelletized grass biofuel industry. As prices continue to rise for high grade energy forms, low-priced farm derived biofuel pellets will increasingly become the heating fuel of choice for many North American energy consumers.

References
¹Samson R., Drisdelle M., Mulkins L., Lapointe C., Duxbury P.
The use of Switchgrass Biofuel Pellets as a Greenhouse Gas Offset Strategy. Bioenergy 2000 Conference, Buffalo, New York, Oct. 15-19, 2000.

Posted in Renewables | Leave a comment

A real power break – meters help capture low prices

Posted on September 22, 2002 by energyprbe

John Spears
Toronto Star
September 22, 2002

With interval hydro meters, consumers can buy power when the price is right

Ontario’s new electricity marketplace has been spitting out power prices that vary from hour to hour – sometimes wildly – since May 1.

But frustrated householders who want to take advantage of the low-priced periods and avoid the high-priced ones have mostly been shut out.

Consumers pay exactly the same for a kilowatt hour of power burned at 2 a.m., when prices are generally low, as they do at 5 p.m. on a hot day, when prices are often soaring due to high demand.

The devices needed to record when power is used, so that utilities can match the time of use with the corresponding price of electricity, haven’t been made widely available, except to big industrial power users.

That’s about to change for the future owners of 28 houses under construction on the site of the old Greenwood racetrack near Queen St. E. and Woodbine Ave.

Their electricity will flow through a device called an interval meter that records the time of day that each kilowatt hour of electricity is used. Toronto Hydro can then match the time of use with the market price at the time, charging perhaps as little as 2 cents a kilowatt hour for power used at 3 a.m., and as much as $1 or more during a price spike at 5 p.m. on a sweltering summer day.

Interval meters are also available to a select few customers in Milton, including Debora Harrold, who says she’s not sure whether she’ll save money – but she’s curious enough to give interval meters a try.

An employee of Milton Hydro, she was one of the utility’s first customers to sign up for the new kind of meter.

Harrold will come out ahead of the game if she plays the market right. But she could lose out if she’s not careful. That’s partly because she might misread the market, and partly because she pays an extra $5.50 a month for the interval meter service – soon to rise to $6.50 if Milton Hydro gets approval from the Ontario Energy Board.

“I was willing to take a chance,” she says. “It’s a hard call, because you never know which way the market’s going to go.” After only four months, she says it’s too early to decide whether her gamble paid off.

May and June saw generally low power prices, and she figures she lost out. But the hot weather and high daytime prices during July and August gave her a chance to save.

Since she and her husband work during the day, they let the house warm up when they were out and cooled it at night.

That seems to have produced some savings, but Harrold isn’t set to declare the experiment a success until she has results from a full year.

Energy Probe executive-director Tom Adams has seen figures from Milton through the first half of August and says they show interval meters have cut the energy portion of the average bill by about 8 per cent.

Milton Hydro has about 30 customers on interval meters and has held information sessions to attract more consumers.

“We have about 70 customers who have expressed interest,” says chief executive Don Thorne. More efforts are planned to spread the word.

Milton Hydro has contracted with Ozz Corporation, based in Concord, to provide the meters. The Ozz system connects the meter via modem with Milton Hydro’s billing system. Information is downloaded daily at 2 a.m.

Because Milton is growing rapidly – adding about 2,500 housing units a year – Thorne thinks there’s an opportunity to boost interval meter use through new developments.

That’s the approach Ozz and Toronto Hydro are taking in their pilot project in Boardwalk Residences at the Greenwood track site.

Ozz pitched the idea to developer Tom Albani, and he decided to install the meters in the still unsold homes.

“We see it as an advantage” in marketing the homes, Albani says.

Toronto Hydro owns the meters but Ozz will be responsible for tracking the readings, which are to be transmitted by modem daily at 2 a.m. Ozz will then hand the time-of-use information to Toronto Hydro, which will correlate it with market prices and bill the customers.

Toronto Hydro has applied to the Ontario Energy Board for an $8 monthly fee to operate the system. That means customers would have to transfer some of their electricity use to off-peak hours such as nights and weekends to break even.

Alternatively, they could install devices that effectively store power. Adams says some firms make heaters that consist of ceramic blocks with electric heating coils embedded in them. The blocks are heated overnight when prices are low. They store the heat until the house cools, when a thermostat switches on a fan that blows the stored heat into the house.

While Toronto and Milton are forging ahead with interval meters, there are still some bumps in the road.

Ingrid Mayrhofer, for example, was startled a few months ago when a Toronto Hydro technician disconnected the old time-of-use meter that she’d had for many years in her west-end Toronto home.

The old meters allowed users to buy power at one fixed low price overnight and a fixed higher price during the daytime.

Mayrhofer had a switch on her hot water heater that turned it on late in the evening and off early in the morning. That meant she had hot water for a shower in the morning, which was when she used most of the hot water. She’d run her washer in the morning on weekends.

Toronto Hydro’s Blair Peberdy says that the old time-of-use meters weren’t compatible with the new market system that kicked in on May 1, so they had to be removed.

Why not install interval meters in those homes?

Toronto Hydro will do so now on request. But Peberdy says there are still some regulatory issues to sort out – among them the rate that Toronto Hydro can charge for them.

It’s also unclear how the cost of installing and monitoring the meters should be spread among a utility’s customers.

Obviously, customers who have the meters benefit from being able to capture low-price periods and avoid high prices – although at the moment the only way they have to monitor hour-by-hour price changes is by logging on to the Internet.

But Adams argues there are more general benefits to all ratepayers.

Consumers who can and do respond to price signals from the marketplace reduce the strain on the power grid during peak demand periods by cutting their consumption.

Lowering overall demand reduces upward price pressure, so that all consumers pay less for power. If peak demand is lessened, it also cuts the need for expensive new generating stations.

Steven Muzzo, chief executive of Ozz, says when demand peaks, Ontario’s dirty coal generating stations generally run full tilt, so taking the edge off peak demand has an environmental benefit.

Adams says the meters also gives local utilities more accurate information about power-usage patterns so they can spot local stress points in their systems and fix potential problems before they happen. That improves reliability for everyone. As yet there are no regulatory guidelines in place that would allow utilities to adjust rates to recognize the overall benefit of interval meters to the power system as a whole.

Meanwhile, there are also skeptics who question whether the meters will benefit a typical consumer.

Alien Stanbury of Alien Stanbury and Associates, a Barrie-area consulting firm, says consumers aren’t necessarily further ahead with an interval meter.

He has run market simulations of typical consumer behaviour, using price data from the deregulated Pennsylvania market.

Stanbury notes that when utilities bill customers who don’t have fixed price contracts, they bill according to a typical pattern of use. The utility assumes that the customer uses relatively little power in the middle of the night, and much more during later afternoon and evening hours, and adjusts its rates accordingly.

A customer with an interval meter who follows the normal-use pattern will simply mimic what the utility is doing already, Stanbury says.

“In fact, it will probably put your bill up,” he says, when the metering cost is included as well.

A more promising avenue than trying to time power-market purchases, says Stanbury, is for utilities to try to curb demand in peak periods when prices can skyrocket.

One utility in Florida has installed devices in thousands of air conditioners that allow the utility to shut them off, for a maximum of one hour a day. The shut-off signal travels over the power lines themselves.

By shutting off the air conditioners, the utility can reduce demand by as much as 600 megawatts – equal to the output of a moderately sized generating unit. That’s often enough to keep prices in check during peak demand periods, Stanbury says.

But Peter D’Uva, a spokesperson for Toronto Hydro-Electric System, says utilities have to give customers the opportunity to react to price signals in the new system, and interval meters are the best tool for that.

“I don’t believe you can have a true deregulated market without interval meters,” he says.

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

The Hormetic Dose-Response Model Is More Common than The Hormetic Dose-Response Model Is More Common than the Threshold Model in

Posted on September 12, 2002 by energyprbe

Edward J. Calabrese and Linda A. Baldwin
Toxicological Sciences
September 12, 2002

ABSTRACT

The threshold dose-response model is widely viewed as the most dominant model in toxicology. The present study was designed to test the validity of the threshold model by assessing the responses of doses below the toxicological NOAEL (no observed adverse effect level) in relationship to the control response (i.e., unexposed group). Nearly 1800 doses below the NOAEL, from 664 dose-response relationships derived from a previously published database that satisfied a priori entry criteria, were evaluated. While the threshold model predicts a 1:1 ratio of responses “greater than” to “less than” the control response (i.e., a random distribution), a 2.5:1 ratio (i.e., 1171:464) was observed, reflecting 31% more responses above the control value than expected (p < 0.0001). The mean response (calculated as % control response) of doses below the NOAEL was 115.0% ± 1.5 standard error of the mean (SEM). These findings challenge the long-standing belief in the primacy of the threshold model in toxicology (and other areas of biology involving dose-response relationships) and provide strong support for the hormetic-like biphasic dose-response model characterized by a low-dose stimulation and a high-dose inhibition. These findings may affect numerous aspects of toxicological and biological/biomedical research related to dose-response relationships, including study design, risk assessment, as well as chemotherapeutic strategies.

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The Hormetic Dose-Response Model is more common than the Threshold Model in toxicology

Posted on September 12, 2002 by energyprbe

(Sep. 12, 2002) The threshold dose-response model is widely viewed as the most dominant model in toxicology. The present study was designed to test the validity of the threshold model by assessing the responses of doses below the toxicological NOAEL (no observed adverse effect level) in relationship to the control response.

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Concern voiced over Bruce Power

Posted on September 10, 2002 by Other News Sources

Ken Warn
Financial Times – U.K.
September 10, 2002

The financial crisis at British Energy, the U.K. nuclear generator, has raised concerns over the long-term safety of the Bruce Power nuclear facilities in Ontario and over a possible supply crunch in the province’s energy market, according to Toronto analysts.

British Energy owns just more than 82 per cent of Bruce Power, which operates four nuclear generators under licence in Ontario, and is working to bring two mothballed nuclear generators back on stream. Canadian uranium miner Cameco owns 15 per cent of Bruce.

The concerns come as the Canadian Nuclear Energy Commission, which regulates the industry, was on Tuesday reviewing Bruce Power’s ability to meet financial guarantees that cover its obligations in the event of a shutdown for safety reasons.

The commission wrote to Bruce Power last month expressing concerns over the C$222m (U$144m) safety guarantee in the light of British Energy’s problems. The commission is also due to conduct its mid-term review of Bruce Power’s overall compliance with its two-year licence this week.

The Canadian regulators appear unlikely to revoke the licence any time soon. “There does not appear to be any urgency. Bruce Power is operating safely,” said Michel Cleroux, commission spokesman.

However, Toronto-based energy think-tank Energy Probe has written to the commission urging it to tighten safety inspections at Bruce Power.

“We are concerned that British Energy’s financial problems might put pressure on safety spending at the Bruce installations over the long term,” said Tom Adams, executive director of Energy Probe.

Bruce Power has assured the Ontario government that it “will continue to meet all its regulatory and financial commitments,” according to John Baird, provincial energy minister.

Under the terms of its lease, Bruce Power must make annual payments to the province rising from C$62m in 2001 to C$92m in 2018. It also faces debt repayments of C$112.5 million plus interest in both 2005 and 2007.

While Bruce Power appears to be in no danger of not meeting current financial commitments, efforts to bring two mothballed reactors back into service could be delayed by the crisis at its parent. Costs of the restart have already escalated this summer from an estimated C$340 million to C$400 million.

“Those expenditures represent an additional cost drain on the parent and I would not be surprised to see some delay in restarting those units,” said Mr Adams.

Any delay in restarting the reactors, due to take place in April and in the summer of 2003, would deprive the already over-stretched Ontario system of much-needed power. This July and August saw record-breaking demand for power.

To read the letter Energy Probe wrote to the Canadian Nuclear Energy Commission, please see: http://www.energyprobe.org/energyprobe/index.cfm?DSP=content&ContentID=5363.

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