LENNOXVILLE, Que. -- Quebec is sending all available electricity to Ontario and New York to help with ongoing power shortages, Premier Jean Charest said Friday.
Quebec also is moving about 50 generators to Ontario to help power hospital operating rooms and other important installations. The first 20 generators were shipped early Friday. Quebec is sending an extra 1,000 megawatts of electricity to both Ontario and New York state to help bolster supply.
The energy was sent after requests from Ontario Premier Ernie Eves and New York Governor George Pataki, Charest said.
"(The Governor) expressed it to me very simply: 'We need energy and anything you can do to supply energy will be appreciated,"' Charest said at a news conference.
"We're ready to offer as much as our system can absorb. We have some room to manoeuvre at this time of year."
Quebec also was sending all available surplus power New England, said Michel Armstrong, Hydro-Quebec's director of system operations.
Quebec's electrical supply was insulated from Thursday's blackout by a unique transmission system that insulates it from other regions.
Quebec's power distribution system has had $2.2 billion in upgrades in the past decade. One billion dollars was spent after the 1998 ice storm that left 3 million Quebecers without power for up to 33 days.
Thirty people died from various causes related to the ice storm and damage reached $3 billion. Hydro utilities from across Canada and the United States contributed manpower and generators to Quebec during its blackout.
"This event reminds us that despite improvements of recent years, we need to be vigilant," Charest said.
How come the Frogs did something we failed to do? There's a lesson here somewhere, methinks. Oy vey!
We had it easy. But we shouldn't get too complacent.
Yep, this is one thing Quebec knows how to right (they're also good at making planes and trains). A lot of people criticized Hydro-Quebec's spending but this investment sure paid off- apparently their interconnect technology, also used by the Texas grid, allows them to export power without risking surges or reverse flow.
I read an amazing article about the latest upgrade in biomass conversion. This is dull stuff except that the newest generation technology brings the cost of converting sewage, municipal garbage, industrial and agricultural waste -- to oil down to
$15@barrel. They do it by imitating and accelerating the process in the earth that by heat and pressure breaks down carbon compounds and converts any carbon based substance to oil. They say with some tweaking and economies of scale--they can do it for
$8-12@barrel. According to the article, agriculture wastes alone would produce 4 billion barrels of oil annually. The US imported 4.2 billion barrels of oil in 2001. Put these biomass converters around every city in the US and then use the oil make electricity and voilla--you have a distributed power generation network.
Sound too good to be true? Read the article and look at the people and agencies in the government, business and scientific establishment who have put their names behind it.
http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/940151.asp?0sl=-42 Here's a couple more articles on the same subject
http://www.discover.com/may_03/gthere.html?article=featoil.html http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/030717/energy_garbage_1.html http://www.mindfully.org/Air/2003/Burn-Turkey-Waste-Energy16may03.htm This is the company website
http://www.changingworldtech.com/techfr.htm Here's a press release from the website:
West Hempstead, NY, April 8, 2003 – Changing World Technologies, Inc. announces the first commercially successful application of thermal technology to convert organic waste into clean energy. Building on scientific research dating to the 1920s and human history extending from the Stone Age, CWT has patented, tested and deployed a technological process that has been awarded $12 million in grants from the US government and produced a joint venture with ConAgra Foods, Inc.
Utilizing low-value waste by-products such as tires, plastics, municipal sewage sludge, paper, animal and agricultural refuse as feedstocks, CWT's thermal technology provides a commercially viable solution for some of the earth’s gravest environmental challenges, including arresting global warming by reducing the use of fossil fuels, and reforming organic waste into a high-value resource. In addition, it has the potential to substantially reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
“If the process works as well as its creators claim, not only would most toxic waste problems become history, so would imported oil,” says Discover magazine, which features a full-length article on CWT's thermal process in the May 2003 issue.
“From the point of view of pollution and the point of view of energy production, this is a remarkable story. This technology offers all of us an opportunity someday to have a more peaceful and a freer world, a world that is not dependent on turbulence and chaos,” said R. James Woolsey, former Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency and a senior advisor to CWT.
Cornerstone Technology
Where earlier attempts at thermal conversion failed, CWT’s thermal process succeeds in breaking down long chains of organic polymers into their smallest units and reforming them into new combinations to produce clean solid, liquid and gaseous alternative fuels and specialty chemicals.
The conversion process emulates the earth’s natural geothermal activity, whereby organic material is converted into fossil fuel under conditions of extreme heat and pressure over millions of years. The cornerstone technology, called Thermal Depolymerization Process or TDP, mimics the earth’s system by using pipes and controlling temperature and pressure to reduce the bio-remediation process from millions of years to mere hours.
The process entails five steps:
(1) Pulping and slurrying the organic feed with water.
(2) Heating the slurry under pressure to the desired temperature.
(3) Flashing the slurry to a lower pressure to separate the mixture.
(4) Heating the slurry again (coking) to drive off water and produce light hydrocarbons.
(5) Separating the end products.
TDP is 85% energy efficient. The process has very low Btu requirements, due to the short residence times of materials at each stage and to the holding of water under pressure.
In addition, it generates its own energy, utilizes recycled water throughout, and uses the steam naturally created by the process to heat incoming feedstock, thereby recapturing expended energy. In addition, TDP produces no uncontrollable emissions and no secondary hazardous waste streams.
"This is not an incremental change. This is a big, new step," said Alf Andreassen, a principal of Paladin Capital Group and former Technical Advisor for Naval Warfare and Science Advisor to President George Bush. "In Europe, there are mountains of bones piling up" due to new
regulations for handling bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, he says. "When recycling waste into feed stops in this country, it will change everything."
Plant Commercialization
To test and refine the technology, CWT established a Research & Development plant at the Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) Naval Yard in partnership with the Gas Research Institute, which opened in December 1999. There the company successfully applied its thermal conversion process to a range of feedstocks, including animal waste, tires, mixed plastics and paper.
“This project and the work that Changing World Technologies is doing in Philadelphia will revolutionize the way we deal with waste products on a broad commercial scale, the production of energy, and the reduction or elimination of waste by-products which enhances economic development… improving air quality, our quality of life as well as our environment,” says Denise Chamberlain, former Deputy Secretary for Air, Recycling & Radiation Protection for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
"The Environmental Protection Agency doesn't even consider us waste handlers. We are permitted as manufacturers. Our process has undergone the scrutiny of an Environmental Assessment under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and received a Finding of No Significant Impact, or FONSI,” said Brian Appel, CWT Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "This process changes the whole industrial equation. Waste goes from a cost to a profit."
ConAgra Foods was one of the first enterprises to express early interest in the commercial application of CWT's thermal process. A joint venture between the companies was entered into in December 2000 for the first commercial application of the technology for the conversion of poultry offal at one of ConAgra's large Butterball Turkey plants. When it is commissioned later this month, the $20 million facility in Carthage, Missouri -- funded in part by a $5 million
grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency -- will process 200 tons per day of fats, bones, feathers, grease and oils.
“If the technology is successful, it could offer enormous opportunities to address farm waste problems in the Midwest. It could be applied to all sorts of other wastes. This looks extremely positive,” said William Rice, EPA Acting Regional Administrator.
According to Howard Buffett, who represents ConAgra's investment, "We've got a lot of confidence in this… We wouldn't be doing this if we didn't anticipate success."
“This is a remarkable opportunity to use new technology to turn a troublesome liability – waste – into a valuable asset – renewable energy,” said Senator Christopher (Kit) Bond of Missouri, when construction of the Carthage plant first began.
About CWT
Mr. Appel, formerly a principal of Atlantis International and Ticket World USA, has assembled a team of high level scientists, technologists and former government officials to lead the commercialization of CWT’s thermal process and related technologies. They include Alan L. Libshutz, President & Chief Operating Officer, a former Managing Director of the energy and finance groups at Salomon Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns; Franklin D. Kramer, Executive Vice President, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs; Terry N. Adams, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer, a specialist in heat transfer, fluid flow and combustion and a former Technical Advisor to Weyerhaeuser R&D; James H. Freiss, PE, Vice President of Engineering, an agricultural engineer who was previously Director of Environmental Affairs for ContiGroup Companies, Inc.; and William Lange, Director of Engineering, an accomplished electromechanical, mechanical, electronics circuitry, and electromagnetic design specialist.
CWT is a holding company dedicated to identifying emerging technologies that address specific energy and environmental needs, and then developing them into viable business opportunities. It is currently commercializing its patented thermal technology, which converts hydrocarbons and organic materials into clean fuels and specialty chemicals. Founded in 1997, CWT’s subsidiaries and affiliated companies include Resource Recovery Corporation, Inc.; Thermo- Depolymerization Process, LLC; and Renewable Environmental Solutions, LLC, a joint venture with ConAgra Foods, Inc. established as the exclusive vehicle to apply CWT’s processes in the global agricultural sector.
For more information, visit CWT at www.changingworldtech.com or call (516) 486-0100.
Contact:
Julie Gross Gelfand
CWT Press Office
(516) 536-7258
jgelfand@hldcreative.com
I agree, we need to take a closer look at a lot of these proposals for smaller-scale generation, especially those that make use of any form of waste material or waste energy. Also, adding small-scale facilities could reduce our vulnerability when plants go offline- right now Ontario is still in crisis mode because just two plants are out. I was amazed to learn that a population of ten million is served by fewer than a dozen powerplants.
Ontario Hydro used to draw power from dozens of small dams, built by local utilities, that were rated less than a megawatt each, but all of them have been decommissioned. These dams could be brought back online with zero impact on the environment because their effect was created decades ago. Also, about a decade ago there was a lot of talk about co-generation with industry but not many projects went ahead- one I do know of was at the Campbell soup plant in Toronto, where a generator was added to the plants's boilers.
Part of the problem is being cause by greenies- Toronto has a solid waste "emergency" that was three decades in the making because council (1) imposed a ban on incineration, (2) did not agree on new lanfill sites even with the knowledge of upcoming closures and (3) rejected a proposal to turn an abandoned mine into a landfill, despite the absence of NIMBYs at the location of the proposed dump. Toronto is now sending 132 garbage trucks each day to a landfill in northern michigan- I shudder to think of what that is doing to air quality.
Another problem with the incineration ban is that all hospitals were forced to shut down their incinerators, which also doubled as heat and hot-water plants. So now they get their heat elsewhere, and all hospital waste is now sterilized by steam then taken to landfill. Meanwhile, neighbouring Brampton has an incinerator that is pollution-free and generates a couple of megawatts for the grid.
None of the small operations could replace a large coal or nuclear plant but they could add a lot of resiliency to the system.
Ontario has now become an importer of electricity during summer, when just a few years ago it was an exporter. This is going to be problematic for the northeast US, as we don't produce anywhere near enough power to be self sufficient. We'll be importing a lot more from Quebec.