Re: Compromise is key to setting energy policy

Editorial: Compromise is key to setting energy policy
	Mar 16, 2011	Knox News
	Energy crises have been a part the American landscape on and off for the past 40 years. However, it seems we have learned little, except perhaps that politicians understand they can get a lot of mileage when they complain about America's dependence on "foreign oil." Since the 1970s when gasoline prices shot up during an embargo by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Americans have talked about decreasing their dependence on oil from other nations, especially the Middle East. (During the current crisis, OPEC has ramped up production to compensate for the loss of Libyan crude.) The early 1970s also was the time the environmental movement was hitting its stride, so there was talk about ending dependence on fossil fuels and switching to alternative forms of energy: solar, geothermal and wind power, among others. And speaking of alternative sources of energy, credit U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander with leading the way. The Tennessee Republican last week became one of the first consumers in the state to purchase a 2011 Nissan Leaf electric car, encouraging the use of electric-powered vehicles. If enough Americans made similar purchases, he said, "that would be the single best way to reduce our dependence on foreign oil." With gasoline prices hitting an average of $3.50 per gallon nationwide last week - about $3.35 per gallon in Tennessee - Alexander's purchase was timely. Meanwhile, those rising gasoline prices continue to capture most of the current attention. And even politicians who seriously want Americans to find alternative sources of energy acknowledge that gasoline will remain the fuel of choice in the near future. Now, some predict that gas prices will reach $5 per gallon by the summer, and that is causing the rhetoric to rise as well. Tennessee's U.S. representatives have decried the dependence on foreign oil as well as the lack of a clear energy policy. U.S. Rep. John J. Duncan Jr., R-Knoxville, also expressed understandable concern about people in rural areas having to drive longer distances to work. Duncan chairs the House Transportation Committee's Subcommittee on Highways and Transit. An energy policy should include drilling in new areas and accelerating approval of nuclear power plants, Duncan said. U.S. Reps. Scott DesJarlais, of the 3rd District, and Phil Roe, of the 1st District, agreed. DeJarlais added that alternative forms of energy should be expanded, while Roe said the U.S. should boost the use of natural gas. Duncan said he expects the new Republican majority in the House to begin pushing for an energy policy that includes more domestic production. The discussion needs to begin anew and not disappear when gasoline prices fall. If the GOP majority can get it going, good for them. With the House in Republican hands and the Senate and White House controlled by Democrats, the current crisis might produce what has been lacking in the past. That would be a compromise that gives Americans a clear, coherent energy policy, one that builds instead of blames and guides instead of guesses. That would be an achievement 40 years in the making.

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President Carter was right

	Mar 16, 2011	UK Progressive
	For 40 years, America's energy policy has been a bipartisan disaster. Since the early 1970s America's dependence on foreign oil has threatened our economy, security and national honor as we corrupted our foreign policy to satisfy our thirst for oil. Nixon failed. Ford failed. Reagan failed. George H.W. Bush failed. Clinton failed. George W. Bush failed. Compared to the magnitude of the problem, Obama so far has failed. Democrats failed. Republicans failed. The House failed. The Senate failed. The one national leader who understood was a prophet without honor in a nation addicted to oil: President Jimmy Carter. When Carter said the energy crisis is the moral equivalent of war, he was absolutely right. Carter could have been a more perfect commander in the politics of passing an energy program. Yet the far larger fault lies with the generals, captains and foot soldiers in a war that demanded our support, a war we have never fought, a war we continue to lose today. Perhaps with the price of oil rising to the skies again, our economic recovery threatened by the punishing price of gasoline, our decadent four-decade program of foreign policy threatened by instability in despotic oil-producing regimes and fears of nuclear meltdown arriving again, this could be President Obama's moment. In 2008 I wrote a column proposing a JFK moon-shot for the fuel-efficient car. I repeat that proposal here, adding an idea first suggested by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Let's create the greatest private incentives in economic history to bring back the drive of invention, innovation and progress and renew "Made in America" to world energy, environmental and technology leadership. I propose that a company that sells at least 250,000 American-made cars that achieve 100 miles per gallon within five years be granted a waiver of all corporate taxes for that year; that the inventor of that car be granted a $1 billion cash bounty from the federal government, payable upon the sale of those 250,000 cars; that investors in that company receive a complete capital gains tax holiday for stock they own in that company held for at least two years; and that all workers in that company receive a holiday of all payroll taxes for one year. My proposal only goes into effect if the 100 mpg cars are sold in large numbers within the five-year window. It would create powerful incentives and rewards for inventors, management, corporate boards, investors and employees to create and sell the cars that would bring revolutionary energy savings for the world and a jobs wave for Americans. Let's fully upgrade the technology at the patent office and hire every employee necessary to fast-track patent approval for all major innovations, especially energy. It is ridiculous for the agency tasked to advance innovation to be a laggard in the world economy. Let's have a televised Davos-like summit in Washington to bring together inventors, engineers, entrepreneurs, CEOs, venture capitalists, private equity managers, labor leaders and consumer groups to develop investment, tax and spending policies to win the moral equivalent of war that we must wage and win together. Brent Budowsky The Hill

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Coal and E.P.A. Proposes New Emission Standards for Power Plants

Adaptation to all the proposed rules constitutes an extraordinary threat to the power sector — particularly the half of U.S. electricity derived from coal-fired generation-

• first national standard and will require all plants to come up to the standard of the cleanest of current plants

Is this why the Big Coal and Big Oil Firms are Lobbying to Cut the Funding for the EPA?

	Mar 17, 2011	New York Times
	WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday proposed the first national standard for emissions of mercury and other pollutants from coal-burning power plants, a rule that could lead to the early closing of a number of older plants and one that is certain to be challenged by the some utilities and Republicans in Congress. Lisa P. Jackson, the agency's administrator, said control of dozens of poisonous substances emitted by power plants was long overdue and would prevent thousands of deaths and tens of thousands of cases of disease a year. Ms. Jackson pointedly included the head of the American Lung Association and two prominent doctors in her announcement to make the point that the regulations were designed to protect public health and not to penalize the utility industry. She estimated the total annual cost of compliance at about $10 billion (This is the Same Projected Cost for New Nuclear Reactors), in line with some industry estimates (although some are much higher), and the health and environmental benefits at more than $100 billion a year. She said that households could expect to see their electric bills rise by $3 to $4 a month when the regulation was fully in force after 2015. Ms. Jackson was acting under a court-ordered deadline to produce a draft rule by Wednesday. "Today's announcement is 20 years in the making and is a significant milestone in the Clean Air Act's already unprecedented record of ensuring our children are protected from the damaging effects of toxic air pollution," she said. Ms. Jackson said that mercury and the other emissions covered by the rule damaged the nervous systems of fetuses and children, aggravated asthma and caused lifelong health damage for hundreds of thousands of Americans. She said that installing and maintaining smokestack scrubbers and other control technology would create 31,000 short-term construction jobs and 9,000 permanent utility sector jobs. Even before the formal unveiling of the rule, some utilities, business groups and Congressional Republicans cast it as the latest salvo in a regulatory war on American industry. They cited a number of recently issued E.P.A. rules, including one on industrial boilers and the first of a series of regulations covering greenhouse gases, which they argue will impose huge costs on businesses and choke off economic recovery. "E.P.A. admits the pending proposal will cost at least $10 billion, making it one of the most expensive rules in the history of the agency," a group of utilities, the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, said in a report this week. "Adaptation to all the proposed rules constitutes an extraordinary threat to the power sector — particularly the half of U.S. electricity derived from coal-fired generation." The group questioned Ms. Jackson's assertion that the technology needed to reduce emissions of mercury, lead, arsenic, chromium and other airborne pollutants was readily available and reasonably inexpensive. The need to retrofit scores of plants in the same short period of time will tax resources and lead to delays, it said. A spokesman for the utility industry's largest trade group, the Edison Electric Institute, said it would be easier for some utilities to comply than others, particularly those that rely more heavily on nuclear power and those that have switched to natural gas for part of their generating capacity. One utility executive said compliance would not be unduly burdensome. "We know from experience that constructing this technology can be done in a reasonable time frame, especially with good advance planning," said Paul Allen, senior vice president and chief environmental officer of Constellation Energy. "And there is meaningful job creation associated with the projects." Public health advocates said utilities had delayed the rules for more than two decades with court challenges and lobbying campaigns. "If you think it's expensive to put a scrubber on a smokestack, you should see how much it costs to treat a child over a lifetime with a birth defect," said Dr. O. Marion Burton, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who stood with Ms. Jackson in announcing the rule. Roughly half of the nation's more than 400 coal-burning plants have some form of control technology installed, and about a third of states have set their own standards for mercury emissions. But the proposed rule issued Wednesday is the first national standard and will require all plants to come up to the standard of the cleanest of current plants. The new rules bring to a close a bitter legal and regulatory battle dating back to the passage of the 1970 Clean Air Act, which first directed the E.P.A. to identify and control major industrial sources of hazardous emissions. By 1990, however, federal regulators had still not set standards for toxic emissions from power plants, and Congress, in the face of stiff resistance from utilities and coal interests, passed legislation directing the E.P.A. to study the health effects of mercury and other emissions, and to detail the cost and effectiveness of control technologies. In 1998, the agency finally complied, delivering a comprehensive report to Congress detailing the health impact of numerous pollutants, including mercury, which by then had been linked conclusively in multiple studies to serious cognitive harm to fetuses. In December 2000, in the last days of the Clinton administration, the E.P.A. finally listed power plants as a source of hazardous air pollutants under the Clean Air Act. The Bush administration E.P.A. faced its own deadlines to devise and put into effect controls for power plant pollution. But rather than issue emissions standards in line with federal law, in 2005, top agency officials instituted a controversial cap-and-trade program for mercury, despite a warning from agency lawyers that the move would throw the issue back into the courts and almost certainly be reversed. As predicted, a coalition of states and environmentalists sued the agency, arguing that the cap-and-trade program would not limit other toxic emissions like arsenic and would allow the dirtiest power plants to pay for the right to pollute, putting nearby communities at risk. In 2008 a federal judge ruled against the E.P.A., giving the agency three years to develop standards for mercury and other pollutants. The long delay has meant that emissions of some major pollutants have grown in recent years. The E.P.A.'s most recent data shows that from 1999 to 2005, mercury emissions from power plants increased more than 8 percent, to 53 tons from 49 tons. Arsenic emissions grew even more, rising 31 percent, to 210 tons from 160 tons. The E.P.A. will take public comment on the proposed regulations for the next several months. It anticipates publishing a final rule at the end of this year or early next year. The rule would take effect fully three or four years later.

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new gearless wind turbine-low to moderate wind speeds

The Innovation by Siemens could be the solution to St Louis Wind Speeds cut in Wind Speed is 3mph just what was needed for our Wind Speeds in the St Louis Area!-.  I'm further researching and will post the findings in an upcoming post. Scotty
Energy Sector / Renewable Energy Division

Siemens launches new gearless wind turbine for low to moderate wind speeds

Brussels, Belgium, 2011-Mar-14

Siemens Energy today launched a new direct drive gearless wind turbine for low to moderate wind speeds at the EWEA 2011 wind power exhibition and conference in Brussels. The core feature of the new SWT-2.3-113 wind turbine is an innovative drive concept with a compact permanent magnet generator. This type of generator is characterized by its simple, robust design, requiring no excitation power, slip rings or excitation control systems. This results in high efficiency even at low loads. With a capacity of 2.3 megawatts (MW) and a rotor diameter of 113 meters the new wind turbine is designed to maximize power production at sites with low to moderate wind speeds. The SWT-2.3-113 is fitted with the new Siemens B55 Quantum Blades. This new blade design boosts efficiency and optimizes performance. A prototype of the new machine was installed in the Netherlands in March.

Together with the SWT-2.3-113 Siemens is introducing the Quantum Blade, a new generation of rotor blades. The new blade is lighter than previous models but retains the superior strength of earlier generations. The new B55 Quantum Blade used for the new wind turbine is 55 meters long and features a redesigned tip and root section. The root section uses Siemens "flatback" profiles to minimize root leakage and provide greater lift. The blade tip has also been redesigned to minimize loads and reduce noise levels. With a noise level of only 105 decibels (dB) the SWT-2.3-113 is one of the quietest wind turbines on the market.

The SWT-2.3-113 is the second gearless wind turbine launched by Siemens. Like the SWT-3.0-101, the 3-MW direct drive wind turbine launched by Siemens in April 2010, the new SWT-2.3-113 features only half of the parts required for a conventional geared wind turbine and a significantly smaller number of moving parts. "The first prototypes of our SWT-3.0-101 have been running for more than a year and fulfilling all expectations in terms of reliability and performance," said Henrik Stiesdal, CTO of the Siemens Wind Power Business Unit. "The design of the new SWT-2.3-113 is based on the same platform as the revolutionizing SWT-3.0-101 wind turbine we launched last year. The new SWT-2.3-113 benefits from experiences accumulated to date," added Stiesdal. "With its proven lightweight design it's a secure and profitable investment. Because gearless technology is low-maintenance, it maximizes our customers' returns."

Together with the SWT-2.3-113 Siemens is introducing the Quantum Blade, a new generation of rotor blades. The new blade is lighter than previous models but retains the superior strength of earlier generations. The new B55 Quantum Blade used for the new wind turbine is 55 meters long and features a redesigned tip and root section. The root section uses Siemens "flatback" profiles to minimize root leakage and provide greater lift. The blade tip has also been redesigned to minimize loads and reduce noise levels. With a noise level of only 105 decibels (dB) the SWT-2.3-113 is one of the quietest wind turbines on the market.

To date, Siemens has installed and commissioned a total of five gearless SWT-3.0-101 wind turbines in Denmark and Norway. Further projects with Siemens direct drive wind turbines are planned in the U.S., Denmark and Germany. In addition to these two new wind turbines with ratings of 3 MW and 2.3 MW, further turbines are already at the planning stage. "This year we'll launch our 6-MW direct drive wind turbine, which will be particularly suitable for large offshore wind power plants," Stiesdal stated.


Wind power is part of Siemens' Environmental Portfolio. In fiscal 2010, revenue from the Portfolio totaled about EUR28 billion, making Siemens the world's largest supplier of ecofriendly technologies. In the same period, our products and solutions enabled customers to reduce their carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions by 270 million tons, an amount equal to the total annual CO₂ emissions of the megacities Hong Kong, London, New York, Tokyo, Delhi and Singapore.

Further information on the SWT-2.3-113 is available at: www.siemens.com/wind
Download of this and more press photos: www.siemens.com/Renewables/pictures/ERE201103050
 ​

The Siemens Energy Sector is the world's leading supplier of a complete spectrum of products, services and solutions for the generation, transmission and distribution of power and for the extraction, conversion and transport of oil and gas. In fiscal 2010 (ended September 30), the Energy Sector had revenues of approximately EUR25.5 billion and received new orders totaling more than EUR30.1 billion and posted a profit of more than EUR3.3 billion. On September 30, 2010, the Energy Sector had a work force of more than 88,000. Further information is available at: http://www.siemens.com/energy

Reference Number: ERE201103050e

Download SWT-2.3-113 wind turbine Spec Sheet Here cut in Wind Speed is 3mph just what was needed for our Wind Speeds in the St Louis Area!

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