transmission

Revolution Wind installs first turbine

September 27, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Revolution Wind is an offshore wind farm being built by Rhode Island and Connecticut and is the first multi-state offshore wind farm in the United States. Once completed, it will deliver 400 MW of power to Rhode Island and 304 MW of power to Connecticut.

Revolution Wind is a 50/50 partnership between Ørsted, the Danish multinational energy company, and Eversource, a major New England utility company. The wind farm is located about 15 miles south of the Rhode Island coast and 32 miles southeast of Connecticut. It is fairly close to the recently completed South Fork Wind, the first completed utility-scale offshore windfarm in the U.S. and was built by the same partnership.

The first Revolution Wind turbine was installed at the end of August and construction continues with the installation of foundations for the 65 turbines that will comprise the project. More than three-quarters of the units were in place by the beginning of September. Ships have also arrived on scene for cable-laying operations for the wind farm. Onshore construction continues in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, on the project’s transmission system. The turbines for the project are being assembled by local union labor in New London, Connecticut.

Commercial operations at Revolution Wind will not begin until 2026. Construction of the electrical substation necessary to connect the project to the regional electric grid is taking place on the site of a decommissioned naval air station and it is a time-consuming project because of the presence of buried waste and soil contamination. The construction of the offshore wind farm itself will be completed in 2025.

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Revolution Wind installs first offshore turbine

Photo courtesy of Kate Ciembronowicz / Orsted via Revolution Wind.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

The cost of methane emissions

April 26, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Stanford University-led research has determined that American oil and gas operations are emitting more than 6 million tons of methane each year. The emissions come from both intentional vents and unintentional leaks.

Methane is the main component of natural gas and losing that much of it through leakage is costing the industry a billion dollars a year just in lost revenue. Adding in the harm to the economy and human well-being caused by adding this much potent greenhouse gas to the atmosphere is estimated to increase the cost of these emissions to $10 billion a year.

These emission and cost estimates are roughly three times the level predicted by the U.S. government. The Stanford numbers are based on roughly a million aerial measurements of wells, pipelines, storage, and transmission facilities in six of the nation’s most productive oil and gas regions located in Texas, New Mexico, California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Utah. These areas account for 52% of U.S. onshore oil production and 29% of gas production.

The survey also found that fewer than 2% of the methane emitters are responsible for 50-80% of emissions in four of the regions. It also found that midstream infrastructure – which includes gathering and transmission pipelines, compressor stations, and gas processing plants – is responsible for about half of total emissions.

While the federal government estimates that methane leakage averages about 1% of gas production, the new survey puts the number at 3%, and some regions lose almost 10% to leakage.

Better tracking and fixing these leaks – especially the larger ones – is essential for climate change mitigation.

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Methane emissions from U.S. oil and gas operations cost the nation $10 billion per year

Photo, posted June 5, 2015, courtesy of Dave Houseknecht / USGS via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Upgrading The U.S. Power Grid | Earth Wise

February 15, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The Department of Energy has launched the Building a Better Grid Initiative to accelerate the development of new power transmission lines. The initiative aims to upgrade the nation’s grid, connect more Americans to clean electricity, and reliably move clean electricity to where it is needed most. The initiative is a part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill that was signed into law in November.

Under the initiative, DOE will identify critical national transmission needs and support the buildout of long-distance, high-voltage transmission facilities as well as support transmission planning, financing mechanisms, transmission-related research and development, and efforts on energy justice.

DOE will deploy more than $20 billion in federal financing that includes more than $10 billion in grants to states, Tribes, and utilities to enhance grid resilience and prevent power outages. It will also coordinate with other agencies to streamline permitting for transmission infrastructure.

Seventy percent of the US grid’s transmission lines and power transformers are over 25 years old. There is also insufficient transmission capacity, especially for transmission that facilitates transfer of power across regions. The current grid is vulnerable to harsh weather and needs improved reliability.

Providing more transmission capacity in areas where it doesn’t exist today is essential for the integration of more large-scale renewable generation sources into the grid. The national goal of 100% clean electricity by 2035 is not just about decarbonizing the generation sources. A substantial upgrade to the transmission infrastructure is necessary and the Building a Better Grid Initiative is a major step in the right direction.

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The big upgrade to the US power grid is kicking off

Photo, posted February 2, 2020, courtesy of Tony Webster via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Path To Net Zero | Earth Wise

March 8, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Reaching net zero emissions is both feasible and affordable, according to researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of San Francisco, and consulting firm Evolved Energy Research. The researchers created a detailed model of the entire U.S. energy and industrial system to produce the first detailed, peer-reviewed study of how to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

The study analyzed multiple feasible technology pathways based on very different assumptions of remaining fossil fuel use, land use, consumer adoption, nuclear energy, and biofuel use. What they had in common was increasing energy efficiency, transitioning to electric technologies, utilizing clean electricity (especially wind and solar power), and deploying small amounts of carbon capture technology.

The decarbonization of the U.S. energy system is an infrastructure transformation. Getting to net zero by 2050 means adding many gigawatts of wind and solar power plants, new transmission lines, a fleet of electric cars and light trucks, millions of heat pumps to replace conventional furnaces and water heaters, and more energy-efficient buildings.

The various pathways studied have net costs between 0.2% and 1.2% of GDP, which is as little as $1 per person per day. The cost variations come from various tradeoffs such as the amount of land given to solar and wind farms as well as the amount of new transmission infrastructure required.

A key result of the study is that the actions required over the next 10 years are similar among all the pathways. We need to increase the use of renewable energy and make sure that all new infrastructure, such as cars and buildings are low carbon.

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Getting to Net Zero – and Even Net Negative – is Surprisingly Feasible, and Affordable

Photo, posted July 12, 2010, courtesy of Tom Shockey via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Renewable Energy And Green Ammonia | Earth Wise

January 20, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Several different clean technology trends may come together on farms across the country where wind turbines could power devices that produce green ammonia for fertilizer and zero emission fuel.

Distributed wind is a kind of renewable energy that doesn’t get much attention. It refers to turbines that are used to generate electricity for on-site use, as for a factory or a farm. It typically involves smaller turbines than the behemoths that are used in giant wind farms.

Installing a wind turbine or two on a farm could be quite valuable if the electricity generated could be used to make green ammonia. Such an application would eliminate the problem of “stranded wind”, which is when a location has lots of wind but lacks access to the electricity transmission infrastructure.

If farmers could utilize wind energy to produce ammonia, they could make their own fertilizer as well as fuel and get relief from price spikes and uncertainties in the commodities market. Of course, they would also make use of the electricity they generate on site.

Most ammonia is produced using a proven technology called the Haber-Bosch process. Ammonia contains only nitrogen and hydrogen, both of which can be extracted from the air. The trick is how to do it efficiently using renewable electricity. The Department of Energy has a program called the REFUEL Initiative, which aims at deploying renewable energy to produce ammonia. The University of Minnesota, among other places, has multiple programs dedicated to green ammonia technology.

There is encouraging progress being made that may ultimately result in a common sight of wind turbines on farms producing fertilizer, fuel, and electricity.

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The Renewable Energy Cows Come Home, Now With Green Ammonia

Photo, posted July 15, 2009, courtesy of Daniel_Bauer via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Hydropower And Floating Solar | Earth Wise

October 30, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

According to a new analysis by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, hybrid systems of floating solar panels and hydroelectric plants have the potential to produce a significant portion of the world’s electricity.

According to their estimates, adding floating solar panels to bodies of water that host hydropower stations could produce up to 7.6 terawatts of power a year from the solar systems, resulting in about 10,600 terawatt-hours of energy. The total global electricity consumption in 2018 was 22,300 terawatt-hours. So, the potential in terms of the global appetite for electricity is very large.

This estimate is certainly optimistic. It does not take into account economic feasibility or specific market demand. What it does represent is an estimate of the technical and performance potential of floating photovoltaics at hydroelectric facilities.

Floating solar is just starting to be used in the U.S., but it has already caught on overseas where space for ground-mounted systems is at a greater premium.

According to the NREL study, nearly 400,000 freshwater hydropower reservoirs across the globe could host floating PV sites that could be used in conjunction with the existing hydroelectric plants. One important advantage of this approach is that the hybrid system would reduce transmission costs by linking to a common substation. In addition, the two technologies could balance each other, with solar power taking up the slack in dry seasons and hydropower working well in rainy seasons. In some places, pumped storage hydropower could be used to store excess solar generation.

There is great potential in hybrid floating solar/hydroelectric power.

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Untapped potential exists for blending hydropower, floating solar panels

Photo, posted April 12, 2009, courtesy of Alexis Nyal via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Engineering Mosquitoes | Earth Wise

February 21, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Tropical regions grapple with the spread of diseases – such as dengue, yellow fever, zika, chikungunya, and malaria – by mosquitoes. A fairly successful strategy has been the Sterile Insect Technique, which is essentially insect birth control. The process involves rearing large quantities of sterilized male mosquitoes in dedicated facilities, and then releasing them to mate with females in the wild. As they do not produce any offspring, the insect population declines over time.

A problem with this approach is that while mosquitoes create health problems for people, they also play important roles in various ecosystems, such as providing food for bats and other animals. Eliminating mosquito populations on a large scale can trigger major changes in ecosystems.

Recently, an international team of scientists has synthetically engineered mosquitoes that halt the transmission of the dengue virus. They genetically engineered mosquitoes with an antibody “cargo” that gets expressed in the female mosquitoes that spread the dengue virus. Once the female mosquito takes in blood, the antibody is activated which hinders the replication of the virus and prevents its dissemination throughout the mosquito, thereby preventing its transmission to humans. Essentially, what the researchers have done is transfer genes from the human immune system to confer immunity to mosquitoes. The researchers are testing methods to neutralize mosquitoes against other viruses they spread.

This opens up a whole new approach to interrupt mosquito-borne human diseases. Mosquitoes are among the deadliest killers on the planet because they are the messengers that transmit deadly diseases. Until now, the only real solution has been to kill the messenger. The new approach may be a better way to deal with a serious problem.

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Mosquitoes engineered to repel dengue virus

Photo, posted June 20, 2014, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Mapping Emerging Infectious Diseases

July 12, 2016 By WAMC WEB

Ebola. Hantavirus. Lyme disease. What do they have in common? Like most emerging infectious diseases, they originated in mammals. So many debilitating pathogens make the jump from wildlife and livestock to humans, yet at the global scale little is known about where people are most at risk of outbreaks.