Water turbines
Webinar: The straight facts on Hydro One connection issues
Do you think that Hydro One has:
° Inflated your connection cost estimates?
° Failed to properly identifying your connection work?
° Misled you regarding whether the work must be done by them, rather than your own contractors?
° Taken advantage of you by implying your CIA will be lost if you do not agree to pay non-negotiable connection costs within 6 months?
Join Gowlings lawyer Ian Mondrow, who has successfully challenged Hydro One practices at the Ontario Energy Board (OEB), and won an important ‘test case' related to the above questions. Get the straight facts to move your project forward.
During the second half of the webinar participants will have the opportunity to share their own cases, ask questions, and contribute to OSEA's strategy for next steps including briefing the Minister of Energy and other collective actions.
Why Poughkeepsie is a great place to wait for the end of the world
Grist / Michelle Nijhuis / 01 July 2011
[Author and social critic James] Kunstler -- clearly an incurable contrarian -- likes Poughkeepsie. He lives in the Hudson Valley himself, in a far cuter but similarly sized town, and he predicts that such neither-village-nor-city places will one day be just right. "We'll see people moving to places that are scaled appropriately to our energy diet," he said -- towns small enough to walk across, but big enough to pool their resources for, say, a hydropower plant. And with good farmland on one side and a great big river on the other, Poughkeepsie is ideally placed for local food production and carbon-free transportation. "Towns like Poughkeepsie are at their nadir now," he conceded, "but they have a lot of virtues that are going to become apparent in the years ahead."
Small Hydro could add up to Big Damage
Environmental Expert / Tasneem Abbasi, S. A. Abbasi / 20 June 2011
It was during the mid-1970s, some 20 years after a number of major hydropower projects had been commissioned, that reports of their adverse environmental impacts began to emerge.
By the end of 1970s it had become clear that the very optimistic, almost reverential, attitude towards hydropower projects that had prevailed during the early 1950s was misplaced. These projects damaged the environment as seriously as did fossil-fuelled power projects.
The mistake had been to see only the virtues, and to not prepare for possible problems, some of which surfaced only once a large number of projects had been commissioned at different locations.
The big question is: are we set to repeat the same mistake with 'small' hydro?
Small river turbines power communities along the Rhine
Canadian Environmental Protection
Since September 2010, a pair of small river turbines from KSB Aktiengesellschaft, installed in the Rhine River near the German town of St. Goar, have been generating electricity for the local grid. These prototype run of river turbines require no damns or diversions of water and mark KSB's intent to develop new power generation technology for commercial use.
"We believe in a type of power supply that aims at economic effectiveness, reliability of supply and ecological compatibility all at once," said Prof. Dr. Dieter-Heinz Hellmann, member of the KSB AG management board.
With the development of the river turbine, he added, KSB can offer a new means of generating power within the scope of "small hydropower" that is not only clean but also capable of providing base load power.
[Hat tip to SWITCH!]
Video: Ontario's Green Energy Blues on The Agenda
OSEA / 17 March 2011
Misinformation spread in the media blaming renewable energy for recent rises in electricity costs was corrected by Ontario's environmental commissioner recently on TVO's current affairs program, The Agenda. After crunching the numbers, renewables, such as wind and solar energy, along with conservation, account for only 0.4 per cent of the current cost of electricity, Gordon Miller calculated. At the same time the commissioner questioned the true cost of nuclear power, which he said is being kept secret. He wants to see the kilowatt hour cost of nuclear.
Also on the program defending renewable energy and the Green Energy Act was Deb Doncaster, executive director of the Community Power Fund. She argues for a renewable energy system that provides jobs, reduces the ill effects of burning fossil fuels on health and that is good for the environment. She also explains how renewable energy enables ordinary citizens to participate in generating electricity and benefit financially.
Court challenge threatens Ontario’s wind energy plans
Ottawa Citizen / Lee Greenberg / 24 January 2011
An Eastern Ontario man has launched a court case that could put the brakes on the province’s green energy plans.
Ian Hanna, a 56-year-old property owner from Prince Edward County, says the government wasn’t fully informed when it concluded industrial wind turbines could exist 550 meters away from the nearest home. Hanna and his supporters say there is no medical evidence to support the decision and are asking a Superior Court judge to halt all wind development until a full medical study is performed. The case will be heard in Toronto on Monday.
Electricity price differences between countries
The Oil Drum / Rembrandt / 10 December 2010
In this post an overview is given of electricity prices in a large number of countries, mainly members of the OECD. This shows how prices vary between households and industry due to tax differences, and by analyzing the sources of electricity per country, it also leads to a better understanding how different energy sources affect the price of electricity.
The price differences show that industrial electricity users are not or only marginally taxed in nearly all countries, while household taxes on electricity usually range between 10% to 35%. The analysis of energy sources show that: 1) countries with a 35% or higher share of natural gas in the electricity mix have the highest industrial electricity prices, 2) Countries with a diversified electricity mix are in the mid-range of electricity prices, 3) No general price level was found for countries with a high share of nuclear, coal, or both in their electricity mix.
