High-efficiency biomass boilers

Hydronics for high-efficiency biomass boilers

link to .ppt presentation:

 http://www.nyserda.ny.gov/All-Programs/Programs/Become-a-Contractor/Renewable-Heat-NY-Contractors

Fairly complicated.  For cordwood boilers, burn fast, burn hot, and store the heat in a stratified, insulated water tank.  For pellet boilers, don't overdesign the system, use lots of controls/sensors, and again store the heat in a stratified, insulated water tank.

Solar PV

Stats before I forget all these numbers.   I had a speaker from SolarCity talk to my class early this week.  Their standard module is 3'x5' (15 sq feet) with a current of 252 watts and weight of 44 pounds. So 4 modules=1 kW and covers 60 square feet.  They install only on roofs that have shingles or raised seam metal.  With raised seam metal they install the panels w/out roof penetration by attaching to the raised seam.

This site can give you really good estimates for your particular location.  It will even let you place a rectangle around your roof and it will back-calculate about how many kW of solar modules will fit  (not corrected for roof slope). http://pvwatts.nrel.gov/index.php

The northeast is not the greatest for solar PV but it's all relative. A professor from Germany told me once that Germany wasn't great for solar PV and he was right.  Compared to Germany the northeast US has a lot of potential (google insolation maps for Germany and the United States).

Total costs for materials/installation of solar PV (around $5/watt) are down about 50% from when I last looked about 10 years ago. SolarCity's model (apparently) is to install with no money down by using NYSERDA/federal grants.  Although many others are not a fan of govt. subsidies, I'm okay with it.  Solar PV panels on roofs have so many environmental benefits compared to every other energy source.  All fossil fuels-too much carbon emission; nuclear-no mechanism in place to store radioactive waste; all biomass solutions-takes away from food production; solar power towers--they're interesting but do we really want such high temperature megaplants?

SolarCity plans on producing 1 GW of modules at the plant that they're currently building in Buffalo. Assuming 15% efficiency that's 150 MW per year. As a point of reference,-------If you shut down Indian Point 2 and 3 you need to replace 2,000 MW (or 1,800 MW if you assume 90% efficiency).

The nameplate versus actual production numbers get confusing fast---Nuclear plants have a high number because they're producing energy all the time except for maintenance/fuel rod replacement. Solar PV installations have a low number because they're not producing electricity at night, during cloudy weather, etc.  Also, solar insolation varies throughout the day, so effectively only 4-6 hours per day of "high-quality" sun is available.  (This "high-quality" number is 1000 watts per square meter per day, which is referred to as one "sun").

Human Genome Data

The human genome data is here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/guide/human/  I always wondered where this data was.  My office is near a cell biologist professor so I asked her.

You can click on a chromosome and see the locations of genes.

APP (chromosome 21), PSEN1 (chromosome 14) and PSEN2 (chromosome 1) are genes related to familial early-onset Alzheimers.  I could find all but PSEN1 on the maps; although a search shows information on PSEN1 and the location 1q42.13.

APP is the amyloid precursor protein.  PSEN stands for presenilin.

A gene that can predispose people to the late-onset version of Alzehimer's is APOE (apolipoprotein E) on chromosome 19.  There are 3 versions APOE2, 3 and 4. You inherit 2 of them.  APOE2 lowers your risk, APOE3 has little impact on risk.  However APOE4 increases your risk; one copy (3-4X); two copies (15X).    1/3 of those w/ Alzheimer's don't have the APOE4 gene and 50% of those w/ 2 copies of the APOE4 gene live to 80 w/o Alzheimer's so........???  The APOE gene is involved in many processes (inflammatory, cholesterol movement, brain blood flow).

All the above info came from "The End of Memory-a Natural History of Aging and Alzheimer's" by Jay Ingram.

Largest Norway Spruce in North America

Root Glen (Hamilton College in Clinton, NY) has the largest Norway Spruce in North America.  The picture does not do it justice.  There are other large trees in Root Glen, including a black walnut tree.

Henning Mankell (Wallendar books)

I like blogging better than facebook.    Henning Mankell died yesterday.  My husband and I read most of his books, and I remember watching the Wallendar shows on PBS.  The burning swans were particularly haunting, more so than reading it in the book.

Mankell's books were complex (many characters, side stories, different points of view).  I personally liked "Kennedy's Brain" (a strange title for sure).  By the end of the book you know nothing more than you did reading the first page, but yet it was an interesting journey nonetheless. 

NYRI-no longer exists as an entity

January 8, 2012 OD--Chris Thompson apparently still lives in Colorado. The group that created NYRI has disbanded. He apparently hung up on the reporter and wouldn't return calls.

Well, the "group" may have backed up away from NYRI, but they are still together in their other companies (at least 7 --see http://www.aciinc.net/directorsOfficers.htm )

What is common about the 7 companies are Robert Mcleese and Chris Thompson. I can barely do one job full-time. I can't imagine being involved in 7 different companies. The life of the "rich" if not "famous" is a life I will never understand. But perhaps having so much money would be a burden, not a gift. Having backpacked the Appalachian trail I try to always remember the lesson I learned there. As long as I've got a warm place to sleep, food and a hot shower I shall "try" to be happy with those basics. Now that I'm older, I would also add good health.

Nyri.info

Does it seem strange that the www.Nyri.info website is now a blog w/ jibberish on it? Do you think NYRI has anything to do with it?

NYRI Rising from the Ashes????

I was going to blog about how NYRI has disappeared (no mention on http://www.aciinc.net/ or http://www.access-capital.com/index.htm ); however, NYRI's homepage now says that in the coming weeks and months they are going to contact and work with those opposed to the NYRI project.

If they are so interested in "engaging" why is there no contact info on their web page? They are, once again, not "walking the talk".

Master Electrical Transmission Plan for NYC

http://www.nycedc.com/NewsPublications/Studies/MasterElectricTransmissionPlanforNYC/Documents/MasterElectricTransmissionPlanforNYC.pdf

Finally a document that actually looks at various alternatives. The NYRI project was included, and according to the document, it has the highest total cost of all alternatives evaluated (see page 17 of 248).

The economic "winner" is to construct a 500 MW combined-cycle powerplant by 2019. The economic "loser" is the NYRI project.

NYRI off the NYISO Queue

NYRI is off the NYISO queue. http://www.nyiso.com/public/webdocs/services/planning/nyiso_interconnection_queue/nyiso_interconnection_queue.xls

The project was 191, and is no longer listed.

CARIS Info

CARIS (Congestion Analysis and Resource Integration Study)

http://www.nyiso.com/public/services/planning/caris.jsp

ABB STARS Presentation

STARS---New York State Transmission Assessment and Reliability Study (4/7/09).

Phase I/II is to be completed August 2009.

http://www.nyiso.com/public/webdocs/services/planning/stars/STARS_presentation_for_April_TPAS.pdf

Combine High Speed Rail and Transmission Line?

I suspect there will be a push for another transmission line between upstate and downstate in the coming years. If nothing else, there seems to be no plan for replacing existing transmission lines as they age. If they were to have to restring (&/or replace towers) on Marcy-South could they even afford to shut it down for a while?----I doubt it; at least not during the summer months.

Let's hope someone is looking at win-win scenarios. How about getting federal funding for a combination of a high speed rail system and some type of underground transmission line that can carry another 1,000 MW or so (with designed provisions for a future upgrade to a 2nd line----for once let's intelligently plan for expansion w/o chaos).

Surely by combining these projects, there could be some sharing of costs----site work, engineering, construction, etc.

Here is a link to California's High Speed Rail Authority. Estimated cost for 800 miles is $45 billion. (Buffalo to NYC is 400 miles.)
http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/

Another link to historical considerations of high speed rail for NY
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_high-speed_rail

2005 Study on High Speed Rail in NY. The picture above comes from this source.

http://www.cdta.org/hsr/

There are disadvantages; a thorough study would be needed.

2009 New York State Energy Plan-Interim Report

http://www.nysenergyplan.com/presentations/NYS%20Energy%20Plan%20-%20Interim%20Report%20-%20March%2031%202009-web.pdf

These reports are always short on details:

Hints of expanding the transmission system are included.

"Physical and operational limitations. Currently, the bulk transmission system in New York can move about 3,050 megawatts of power between the western and northern portion of the State into the Hudson Valley and can move about 5,150 megawatts from the lower Hudson Valley into New York City and Long Island. There is insufficient transmission to move all the available power from upstate New York, Ontario, Quebec and New England at all times to the major load centers in New York. Given the concentrated load in New York City and Long Island, these areas are subject to locational capacity requirements.11 New York City needs to maintain generation resources within the City equal to at least 79 percent of its peak load and Long Island must maintain generation resources equal to at least 97 percent of its peak load to ensure reliability. Increased transmission into either of these areas could reduce these locational requirements. "

"Given that market and public policy demands are likely to place a premium on the capabilities of the State’s high-voltage transmission grid over the planning horizon and beyond, the 2009 Energy Plan will suggest steps that can be taken toward its expansion and modernization."

"For example, certain customers within a 30-mile radius of the Niagara facility qualify for an allocation of Niagara hydropower that has, for decades, been priced at approximately 1.07 cents per kilowatt-hour."

Exactly which "certain customers" are getting NYPA electricity? I hope whoever is getting electricity at 1 cent per kw-hr is not wasting it because it's so cheap. Upstate New York should have requested a similar deal when the Marcy-South transmission line was built.

I think there needs to be much more transparency as to who is paying what price. There's tons of data on NYISO's site, but the basic info is hidden.

Drumming Grouse

I heard a grouse drumming today near the NYSW railroad. Not many times have I heard a grouse drumming.

There's a lot of wildlife near the railroad. A lot of animals use it as a pathway, and there is a lot of brush and trees nearby to provide habitat. Much of that habitat would have been wiped (cleared) out if the NYRI project had gone through.

There were lots of tables in the NYRI project application, but the loss of the "drumming grouse" was not well conveyed.

Levelizing Costs

I received this comment:

"You're missing the bigger point. Look at prices upstate versus downstate on nyiso.com. New transmission from upstate to downstate would cause electricity prices to levelize somewhat upstate/downstate.Because of the huge population unbalance, each 100% rise in energy costs upstate would result in roughly a 20% reduction in costs downstate. That would cause a political volcano of unprecedented proportion.I don't believe that there exists the political courage to levelize power costs. By the way, the same political issue is what killed the proposed merger between ISO NE and NYISO. It would have caused prices to rise in New England and to drop in NY."

I did not know that there had been a proposed merger between ISO NE and NYISO.

With respect to levelizing costs, I would argue that before we levelize electricity costs let's levelize incomes. And the New York City area would say let's levelize the cost of living before we levelize incomes. And we could go on and on...

I read once that if we averaged incomes throughout the globe, that everyone would have about the same income as the average person in Bangladesh. It's probably true since I think about 2 billion people live on $2 per day. That's depressing since Bangladesh is pretty poor.

I once went to a presentation on Bangladesh. Many in Bangladesh don't have clean water sources and were using surface water, which can be easily contaminated. With good intentions, wells were provided to help alleviate the problem, but no one knew that some of the groundwater had natural levels of arsenic. Low-level arsenic poisoning causes significant health problems. The speaker had been part of a group that tested many of the wells. As a warning they painted those that had high levels of arsenic. Sickness via arsenic or sickness via contaminated surface water. Not much of a choice.

Suspend versus Withdraw

NYRI used the word suspend instead of withdraw. This of course implies a temporary respite versus "ending the quest".

The judge basically told NYRI that they would have to start all over again if they decided to reapply. I'm assuming this means they would have to rehold all their public meetings.

I'll feel better when they take the project off the NYISO queue.

NYISO White Paper - Transmission Expansion in New York State

http://www.nyiso.com/public/webdocs/documents/white_papers/transmission_11202008.pdf

How to pay for transmission:
1-Everyone pays (postage stamp rate)
2-User pays

"New York has a long history of upstate versus downstate disputes over infrastructure, and transmission is a part of that history. Simply put, upstate interests typically do not want to host, and much less pay for, facilities designed primarily to serve downstate interests. Meanwhile, downstate interests are not willing to fund (and bear the cost recovery risk for) 100% of the cost of facilities located upstate. Projects that have circumvented this cost allocation roadblock, such as the New York State Thruway and NYPA’s state-wide transmission network, were state-sponsored projects that will be difficult to repeat in today’s political and siting environment."

I'm not sure why the Thruway is included. The Thruway is used by all; I don't think upstate New York is opposed to the Thruway.

No one in upstate NY got benefits out of the NYRI project. (Well there was a one-time $30 million proposed community fund--but a one-time amount spread over 200 miles was practically worthless--since impacts were so horrendous).

Part of the problem is that everyone wants to mix systems. Let's use the capitalist system so that NYRI can be enticed to build and make the big bucks. But when it comes to private property owners let's switch to eminent domain (your property get's to be taken to benefit all). Let's not have it both ways. If upstate land and right-of-way is so valuable then let's (both communities and individuals) be allowed to get the big bucks too.

We're mixing up systems in the banking industry too. Banks get to use free market capitalism until they gamble all the money away, then the switch is made to socialism so that everyone pays to shore up the banks.

Inherently unfair and inconsistent systems----they'll never work. They also demoralize everyone.

Eastern Wind Integration and Transmission Study (EWITS)

Some links to the Eastern Wind Integration and Transmission Study (EWITS)
Study to be completed mid-2009

http://www.uwig.org/Denver/Corbus.pdf

http://www.westconnect.com/filestorage/nrel_corbus_lew_madrid_052608.pdf

http://www.interiso.com/public/meeting/20081211/a_ncsp_ipsac.pdf

NYISO Wind Integration Study

NYISO is studying how to integrate larger amounts of wind. One of the issues they're looking at is whether and how much transmission might be needed.

http://www.nyiso.com/public/webdocs/committees/bic_miwg/meeting_materials/2008-10-10/Wind_Integration_Study_Status_Report.pdf