27. March 2008 by admin.

The race is on to develop new super crops to feed and fuel the planet, says the head of an Ontario biotechnology firm.

Speaking to a seminar for grain farmers in London yesterday, Dave Denis of Kingston-based Performance Plants Inc. said genetically-modified crops with much higher yields are needed now that global grain stocks are at record lows.

“We have to engineer our way out. I don’t see any other way,” said Denis in an interview.

He said pressure to feed the global population will be accelerated by the growing middle classes in China and India who have an appetite for grain and meat products.

He said increasing agricultural production will be a challenge because bringing more land into production will cut into wildlife habitat. World grain production also has been limited by droughts and other extreme weather.

The answer is to genetically engineer crops with traits such as drought, frost and disease resistance, he said.

New varieties of crops geared to energy production are now being developed, he said, and trials are underway to grow crops such as switchgrass than can be burned as fuel or turned into ethanol.

While ethanol production from corn has sparked a food versus fuel debate, Denis said the industry will eventually switch to cellulose-based ethanol from other plant sources. “The amount of ethanol you can make from corn starch are trivial compared to the needs,” he said.

And there have been amazing advances in crop yield.

“People were better fed at the end of the 20th century than at the beginning even though the world population went from four to six billion.”

Syngenta, an agricultural chemical and seed company sponsored the seminar.

Syngenta president Dave Sippell said corn yields have tripled to 150 bushels an acre over the last 30 years. He said genetic engineering could push yields up to 300 bushels.

Syngenta is now working on a corn hybrid genetically adapted for more efficient ethanol production. The company hopes to have the new hybrid in production by 2011.

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26. March 2008 by admin.

Bruce Power LP shut the 750-megawatt Unit 4 at the Bruce nuclear power station in Ontario for planned maintenance, the company said in a release Wednesday.

The company expects the unit to return in about a month.

During the outage, the company said, workers will inspect the unit’s steam generators and heat transport system.

The unit last shut for maintenance from March 19 to April 18, 2007. It is on a 12-month cycle.

Before the company replaces the steam generators on Units 3 and 4, it will continue to shut the units for maintenance more often than the Bruce B units (about every 12 months for Bruce A versus about 30 months for Bruce B) but for shorter outages (1 month for Bruce A versus 2 months for Bruce B).

The company plans to replace the Unit 3 and 4 steam generators by 2013, after Units 1 and 2 return to service in the 2009-10 timeframe.

The 6,261 MW Bruce station is located on the eastern shore of Lake Huron north of Kincardine, about 155 miles (250 km) northwest of Toronto. There are four 750 MW Units 1-4 at the A station (which entered service in 1977-1979) and three 822 MW Units 5-7 and one 795 MW Unit 8 at the B station (1984-1987).

Unit 6 shut by March 24 and likely will return in late March. Unit 7 shut Jan. 27 and likely will return in late March.

The company expects to increase the output of Unit 8 to about 822 MW by modifying the fuel-loading system by 2009.

Ontario Hydro, the former province-owned power company, shut Units 1 and 2 in 1997 and 1995, respectively, because they needed extensive upgrades.

One MW powers about 1,000 homes in Ontario.

Bruce Power LP, of Tiverton, Ontario, operates the entire Bruce complex and leases the Bruce B station from Ontario Power Generation, the province-owned generating company.

BRUCE A RESTART

Bruce Power continues to work on a C$5.25 billion project to fully restore the Bruce A station.

The company plans to restart Unit 2 in late 2009 and Unit 1 in early 2010, and replace the fuel channels and steam generators on Units 3 and 4 by 2013.

The return of Units 1 and 2 would replace more than 20 percent of the province’s 6,400 MW of coal-fired generation, which the government wants to shut for health and environmental reasons by 2014.

Bruce is also looking to refurbish the four Bruce B reactors and is considering building new reactors at the station.

In January 2007, Bruce launched an environmental assessment of the new build project that will take about three years to complete. The project would add 4,000 MW of electricity to the grid by about 2016. The company plans to use the environmental assessment to select the best reactor design, location on the Bruce site and waste management system.

Bruce said it would need to refurbish all four Bruce B units between 2015 and 2020. The company said it would decide in the future whether it makes economic sense to refurbish the existing units or replace them with new reactors. (Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Walter Bagley)

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23. March 2008 by admin.

The city’s Office of Emergency Management has called in an army to map out more than 100 areas vulnerable to a ruinous blackout and to calculate the fastest way to restore power.

The Army Corps of Engineers is fanning out into areas with hospitals, jails, subway terminals and water and sewage treatment plants.

“Most cities you respond to, they have not even considered how to provide backup power,” said Capt. Natalie Casey of the Corp’s 249th Engineer Battalion, who led a team through the New Fulton Fish Market in the Bronx.

The Hunts Point market handles all the fresh seafood in the New York region. A 10-day blackout there - like the one that crippled Long Island City and Astoria in Queens in 2006 - would leave thousands of city restaurants in the lurch.

The 2006 power failure in Queens left tens of thousands sweltering for up to 10 days as crews scrambled to fix blown cables street by street.

Three years earlier, a blackout paralyzed the Northeast and cost New York an estimated $1 billion in expenses and lost business.

“In case of a megablackout, they’d be able to come in with a generator, plug it in and hook you up,” said Jeffrey Manzer, vice president of the city’s Economic Development Corp., which built the fish market building.

Armed with clipboards and cameras, Casey and two sergeants studied electrical service panels, walked along rooftops and quizzed managers about peak power loads at the market, where a faint fishy smell permeated the air.

“They’re just looking at what this facility has,” Casey said. “They’re deciding what on that [electrical] panel should be on, and what size generator would be needed.”

The Corps has done similar surveys in other scattered locations, Casey said, but New York is the first city to invite the Corps in and pay for the work.

“It was a way to bolster our readiness,” explained OEM spokesman Andrew Troisi. “It doesn’t have to be a citywide power [failure] - it could be a limited exposure that knocks out power for a couple of weeks.”

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21. March 2008 by admin.

MULBERRY - The Polk County city of Mulberry was without power for more than an hour Thursday, and deputies say a criminal is to blame.

Investigators believe it was caused by the theft of copper wire from the TECO Moores Lane power station.

The power outage affected about 4,000 homes and all traffic lights in Mulberry, so police officers had to go to some intersections to direct traffic.

Power was restored around noon.

Investigators say the theft caused more than $500,000 worth of damage.

Deputies are investigating the theft, but they have no suspects yet. They say the same suspects may be responsible for the theft of copper wire from the TECO Imperial Lakes power station on Tuesday.

Anyone with information about this incident is urged to contact Det. Ian Rylott at 1-800-226-0344 or (863) 499-2400, or call Crimestoppers at 1-800-226-TIPS.

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19. March 2008 by admin.

Associated Press - March 18, 2008 7:05 PM ET

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - Power equipment manufacturer Powermate Corporation has filed for bankruptcy and announced plans to close its Kearney plant, eliminating about 200 jobs.

Powermate said in its U.S. bankruptcy court filing yesterday that it owes between 50 million and $100 million to creditors, most of which are suppliers. The company is seeking Chapter 11 protection.

It is not immediately clear how all of Powermate’s operations will be affected by the filing because no one answered the phones at the company’s Aurora, Illinois, headquarters, and the company has not issued a statement.

The company, which has plants in Kearney and in Springfield, Minnesota, manufacturers portable generators, air compressors and pressure washers.

The Kearney plant manager Ward Jorgenson told the Kearney Hub the plant will close Friday, but wouldn’t comment further.

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16. March 2008 by admin.

SAVANNAH, Ga. –The color of Savannah’s weekend St. Patrick’s Day celebration turned from green to pitch black late Saturday as the city and most of Chatham County lost power, plunging the downtown party into darkness as thousands roamed the streets.The only lights in the downtown historic district were flashing atop police cars as officers directed traffic amid throngs of revelers roaming streets littered with plastic cups and shouting “Paaartay!” and “Happy Blackout Day!”

“It’s just people wandering around in the dark, man,” said 23-year-old Danielle Smith of Savannah, looking for friends amid the confusion near the city’s riverfront. “This is crazy!”

The blackout hit at about 10 p.m. as strong thunderstorms tore through southern Georgia and South Carolina just north of Savannah. Some 150,000 customers in the Savannah area were without electricity after transmission lines were knocked out by the storms in Effingham County, company spokesman Jeff Wilson said.

Lights in the city started coming back on about 1 a.m. Sunday, he said.

By 9:45 a.m., about 24,500 customers were still without power, company spokeswoman Carol Boatright said. Crews worked throughout the night to restore power but were slowed by the darkness, she said.

A few bars kept pouring drinks, with bartenders counting customer’s drinks with flashlights, as patrons huddled around tables lit by candles. Smith managed to buy a cold beer for $2.50 at one darkened watering hole.

Authorities reported few problems despite the potential for chaos. Police closed the riverfront bars by 11:30 p.m. and the lingering street party began dispersing an hour later as it began to rain. Savannah Fire Capt. Matthew Stanley said a couple of street robberies were reported downtown, but no major incidents.

“Everything’s still very calm,” Stanley said. “Everybody’s just kind of wandering around aimlessly.”

Steve Gaskell and his friends had just stepped off the elevator at their hotel when the power went out. They walked near the riverfront and sat on a park bench, sipping beer with a video camera ready in case anything crazy happened.

“We were expecting mayhem, but there isn’t much,” said Gaskell, 26, of Milwaukee. “We walked past a jewelry store and I figured the alarm was off and windows would be broken. But so far so good, I guess.”

The blackout didn’t stop Mike Birbiglia of Myrtle Beach, S.C., from heading out late to join the party. By the time he got to the ramps winding down to the riverfront bars, he said, police turned him away.

So he wandered with the rest of the crowd by the lights of a firetruck parked at an intersection, unsure of where he was going but hoping the fun wouldn’t stop.

“We were looking for a good time, and then this happened,” said Birbiglia, 25. “But I’m still having a good time.”

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12. March 2008 by admin.

The Ontario Power Authority (OPA) is on a quest to find vital back-up power sources for those lazy, hazy, power crazy days of summer and a couple of Mississauga companies are hoping to be part of the solution.
Numerous industries that require back-up power have their own generation systems, which they use only when there is a blackout and they must keep operating.
It is that army of underused generators that the OPA hopes to harness for those days when the burden of hot weather and air conditioning threatens to overwhelm the province’s capacity to generate power.
“There are in the area of 2,000 megawatts of these generators available across the province, a lot of that within downtown Toronto,” said Robert Desnoyers, co-founder and vice-president at Mississauga-based Safety Power Inc.
“We’ve got those generating assets sitting out there strategically, and they’re located exactly where this province needs them most.”
A new OPA program called Demand Response 3 (DR3) could call those generators into service when the province needs them most.
Eight companies, called “aggregators,” have applied to participate in the DR3 program. An aggregator signs up as many owners of backup generators as it can, then strikes a single contract with the power authority guaranteeing that, when asked, a certain amount of backup power generation can be switched on.
There is a bit of a catch, however.
Most of the back-up generators run on diesel fuel, which produces significant emissions. Ontario’s Ministry of Environment has proposed a new regulation that will only allow non-emergency use of backup generators if they comply with strict emission guidelines.
That’s where would-be aggregators Safety Power and another Mississauga company called Gal Power Systems see huge opportunity in retro-fitting old diesel generators with emission control technologies. The cost can be covered through the DR3 program.
“We maintain that with some technology added to the generators we can demonstrate a diesel generator could meet or exceed emissions criteria,” said Desnoyers.
Over time, it’s hoped that diesel generators will be replaced with more efficient, cleaner natural gas generators. If enough are called into action, there may not be a need to build new natural gas plants proposed in Mississauga, such as the Sithe plant on Winston Churchill Blvd. at Royal Windsor Way, or the prospective plant on the site of the former Lakeview Generating Station.

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1. March 2008 by admin.

Texas’ near miss with rolling blackouts Tuesday night may appear at first blush to be a sign of the failings of wind power — more than 80 percent of the state’s wind turbine energy went offline when a North Texas cold front stilled the air.

But the state’s grid operators say a problem they could normally handle was complicated when a number of traditional power plant operators failed to provide the amount of electricity to the grid as promised.

The details behind the close call may seem esoteric, but it’s an important distinction to make in a state where wind power is the fastest-growing source of new projects and the margin between power supply and demand grows tighter.

No one named

Luminant, the Dallas-based power plant operator part of the firm formerly called TXU, said Friday one of its plants took longer than expected to respond to a call for more power Tuesday night as the grid’s resources dipped dangerously low.It appears several power providers didn’t perform as expected, according to a spokeswoman for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s quasi-public grid operator, but names won’t be revealed at this point.

Ultimately, ERCOT headed off a crisis by calling on a handful of so-called interruptible customers, large industrial operations that get reduced rates in exchange for being ready to cut power at a moment’s notice.

Those companies turned off about 1,100 megawatts.

Most of Texas saw no sign of problems. One megawatt can power hundreds of homes.

ERCOT said the incident is still being investigated and findings will likely be handed over to the Texas Public Utility Commission in the coming weeks.

Wind wasn’t sole issue

Many reports on Tuesday’s incident failed to mention the complexity of the problem or blamed it entirely on wind, said Rob Gramlich, policy director for the American Wind Energy Association, an industry advocacy group.

That same day in South Florida, a problem at an electric substation caused nuclear and natural gas-fired power generators near Miami to trip off temporarily, leading to blackouts for about 584,000 customers.

“No generation system operates flawlessly all the time, which is why we need to have well-equipped system operators that can address system shortfalls,” Gramlich said.

Gramlich believes as much as 20 percent of the nation’s power could come from the wind if better wind forecasting systems are developed and power grids are expanded to connect with the primarily rural areas where wind resources are the strongest.

Wind power capacity in the U.S. grew by 45 percent in 2007, according to the industry group, such that it accounts for just over 1 percent of all U.S. power.

Texas has the most wind capacity in the country, with more than 4,300 megawatts installed, because it has many areas with strong winds and laws that require a certain percentage of power come from renewable sources.

California has 2,400 megawatts of wind capacity.

“Wind, like all generation technology, is best used as part of a diverse portfolio of sources,” Gramlich said.

10 Minutes’ warning

Steve Stengel, a spokesman for Florida Power & Light, agreed that blaming wind as the lone culprit in Tuesday’s event in Texas is short-sighted. His company has 4,700 megawatts of power generation capacity in Texas, including 1,900 megawatts of wind power.”ERCOT and other stakeholders are working very hard at mastering ways to better integrate wind into the overall generation mix in Texas,” Stengel said.

The near miss is a testament to ERCOT’s demand-response system, said Malcolm Smith, executive vice president of Consumer Powerline, a company that helps businesses manage their power needs.

Texas has one of the most sophisticated systems for having large customers voluntarily cut back on power usage during times of peak demand, he noted, and has added a second tier of demand-response customers this year who can turn down their power usage with 10 minutes’ warning.

“There’s certainly a groundswell of attention and recognition of these kinds of programs from the different states and regions, but not a lot of clarity on what is the optimal model and who will fund it,” Smith said.

Future plans
ERCOT tries to keep the amount of power generation available at least 12.5 percent above the expected peak demand, but estimates say it could dip slightly below that margin as early as next year.That figure could change, however, as new projects come online and growth projections change.

The latest estimate has the reserve margin climbing back to 14 percent by 2010 but dipping to 11.2 percent in 2011.

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