Thursday, September 18, 2008
NYS getting more-energy-independent; more parking news
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The effort to get the nation’s electric power from wind turbines (20% in ten years) has hit its first real technology hurdle – the organized Grid, a US/Canadian electric distribution network of 200,000 miles of power lines owned by 50 companies, a structure finely balanced to supply electricity to regions hit by brownouts, does not have the carrying capacity for the added power. The Grid did not work or was sabotaged by Enron when California, after implementing limited deregulation, was hit by shortages in 2000 and had to buy energy at huge premium prices.
In NYS alone we have 1,500 megawatts, with 8, 00 more planned, One megawatt is enough to operate a Wal-Mart store. Mayor Bloomberg has recommended wind turbines for the bridges over East and Hudson Rivers, as well as for the rooftops of buildings small and tall, a prospect that will not brighten the lives of preservationists and tourist industry officials. Some small turbines have already appeared, in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, with delicate lacy canopies that serve as bird shields. Small home size installations are available for $10K, after discounts and subsidies.
Meanwhile, Maple Ridge Wind farm, near Lowville, operated by Horizon Wind Energy, installed at $320M cost, has shut down because it overloads the accessible transmission lines. In Texas T. Boone Pickens who developed wind farms in the Panhandle, obtained permission for a 250-mile underwater transmission line to Dallas, Not here though, landowners and power companies rebel. In the North East, 14 senators have signed a letter to the Energy Department, calling its actions too aggressive.
Protests are rising, even in the sparse North Country areas, such as Franklin County on the Canadian border, with poor farms of thousands of acres, already crisscrossed with power lines and dotted with towers, a distress area. In Messina the big employer GM is closing a plant in 2009, losing jobs in four figures. The protesters object to losing whatever views they have left, and being forced to live with huge turbines as neighbors, five large farms have already succumbed to wind turbine installation.
Some aggressiveness is traceable to the entrepreneurs. Attorney-General Andrew Cuomo is questioning Noble Environment Power of CT and First Wind of MA about obtaining town board approvals by offering jobs to the leaders, and opportunity to sell cement and supplies. The boards of Bellmont, Burke and Brandon come up in discussions. Brandon has already banned the wind towers, but nevertheless…Meanwhile a big operator, Iberdrola S. A. of Spain is looking to invest $2B in wind turbines in NYS. It has already reached a $4.6B deal with Energy East, the operator of Rochester Gas and Electric, New York State Electric and Gas (NYSEG) as well as power companies in Maine, Massachusetts and Connecticut, which has been finally approved by the NYS Public Service Commission, after months of protests and negotiations. The commissioners are imposing major conditions, to protect both competition and consumer interests, severe but not deal-breakers, which Iberdrola has not yet fully accepted. The conditions include a $275M reserve to offset potential rate increases, and selling the company’s fossil fuel production facilities, meanwhile keeping its NYS wind power turbines, as long as it commits up to $200M to wind power investment.
In addition to wind, NYS has resuscitated its oil and natural gas resources, generating some $507M worth of oil and natural gas in 2007, from 12,994 oil and gas wells, with new 386 permits issued for natural gas wells, 142 for oil wells, 31 for geothermal wells, 14 for brine and other. The depth of all the wells drilled in 2007 in New York equaled more than 1.4 million feet, or about 274 miles, roughly the distance from Albany to Buffalo.
New York's fossil fuel resources are concentrated on the southern tier, the Finger Lakes and the western regions, representing the northernmost part of the Trenton-Black River geological formation, which stretches underneath Appalachia, from Kentucky through Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania and into upstate New York and southwestern Ontario. This formation has been New York's primary gas production zone for more than a decade.
Metro-Parking. Last week’s article was shortened by seven lines describing the inconsistency of rules. Meanwhile we have succeeded in clarifying the rules: the 311 agents, reacting on my and your complaints, have added some new signage in the 16-19th Street area. Good? Not really, they have increased rates. Some 3rd Avenue blocks now charge $2/one hour. $5/2 and $9/3 hour commercial rates, S2 minimum, instead of the old 25c/12 minimum meter rate we civilians paid. Formerly free commercial areas now also pay. Does the Mayor know that these increased costs of commercial rates and ticketing of delivery trucks eventually are passed on to the consumer? Or does he care?
The effort to get the nation’s electric power from wind turbines (20% in ten years) has hit its first real technology hurdle – the organized Grid, a US/Canadian electric distribution network of 200,000 miles of power lines owned by 50 companies, a structure finely balanced to supply electricity to regions hit by brownouts, does not have the carrying capacity for the added power. The Grid did not work or was sabotaged by Enron when California, after implementing limited deregulation, was hit by shortages in 2000 and had to buy energy at huge premium prices.
In NYS alone we have 1,500 megawatts, with 8, 00 more planned, One megawatt is enough to operate a Wal-Mart store. Mayor Bloomberg has recommended wind turbines for the bridges over East and Hudson Rivers, as well as for the rooftops of buildings small and tall, a prospect that will not brighten the lives of preservationists and tourist industry officials. Some small turbines have already appeared, in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, with delicate lacy canopies that serve as bird shields. Small home size installations are available for $10K, after discounts and subsidies.
Meanwhile, Maple Ridge Wind farm, near Lowville, operated by Horizon Wind Energy, installed at $320M cost, has shut down because it overloads the accessible transmission lines. In Texas T. Boone Pickens who developed wind farms in the Panhandle, obtained permission for a 250-mile underwater transmission line to Dallas, Not here though, landowners and power companies rebel. In the North East, 14 senators have signed a letter to the Energy Department, calling its actions too aggressive.
Protests are rising, even in the sparse North Country areas, such as Franklin County on the Canadian border, with poor farms of thousands of acres, already crisscrossed with power lines and dotted with towers, a distress area. In Messina the big employer GM is closing a plant in 2009, losing jobs in four figures. The protesters object to losing whatever views they have left, and being forced to live with huge turbines as neighbors, five large farms have already succumbed to wind turbine installation.
Some aggressiveness is traceable to the entrepreneurs. Attorney-General Andrew Cuomo is questioning Noble Environment Power of CT and First Wind of MA about obtaining town board approvals by offering jobs to the leaders, and opportunity to sell cement and supplies. The boards of Bellmont, Burke and Brandon come up in discussions. Brandon has already banned the wind towers, but nevertheless…Meanwhile a big operator, Iberdrola S. A. of Spain is looking to invest $2B in wind turbines in NYS. It has already reached a $4.6B deal with Energy East, the operator of Rochester Gas and Electric, New York State Electric and Gas (NYSEG) as well as power companies in Maine, Massachusetts and Connecticut, which has been finally approved by the NYS Public Service Commission, after months of protests and negotiations. The commissioners are imposing major conditions, to protect both competition and consumer interests, severe but not deal-breakers, which Iberdrola has not yet fully accepted. The conditions include a $275M reserve to offset potential rate increases, and selling the company’s fossil fuel production facilities, meanwhile keeping its NYS wind power turbines, as long as it commits up to $200M to wind power investment.
In addition to wind, NYS has resuscitated its oil and natural gas resources, generating some $507M worth of oil and natural gas in 2007, from 12,994 oil and gas wells, with new 386 permits issued for natural gas wells, 142 for oil wells, 31 for geothermal wells, 14 for brine and other. The depth of all the wells drilled in 2007 in New York equaled more than 1.4 million feet, or about 274 miles, roughly the distance from Albany to Buffalo.
New York's fossil fuel resources are concentrated on the southern tier, the Finger Lakes and the western regions, representing the northernmost part of the Trenton-Black River geological formation, which stretches underneath Appalachia, from Kentucky through Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania and into upstate New York and southwestern Ontario. This formation has been New York's primary gas production zone for more than a decade.
Metro-Parking. Last week’s article was shortened by seven lines describing the inconsistency of rules. Meanwhile we have succeeded in clarifying the rules: the 311 agents, reacting on my and your complaints, have added some new signage in the 16-19th Street area. Good? Not really, they have increased rates. Some 3rd Avenue blocks now charge $2/one hour. $5/2 and $9/3 hour commercial rates, S2 minimum, instead of the old 25c/12 minimum meter rate we civilians paid. Formerly free commercial areas now also pay. Does the Mayor know that these increased costs of commercial rates and ticketing of delivery trucks eventually are passed on to the consumer? Or does he care?
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 10:42 AM 
