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The refurbished Old al Kut substation 33kV switchgear provided more reliable electrical power to approximately 300,000 people in al Kut. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Joe Thompson. FORWARD OPERATING BASE DELTA — The people of al Kut are receiving more reliable electricity, thanks to the upgrade of the Old al Kut substation 33kV switch gear, which increases the availability of power for transmission and distribution. Two sections of the antiquated substation were replaced and came online approximately two weeks ago. Government officials celebrated its completion during a ribbon cutting ceremony, July 16.“The people of al Kut have noticed...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE DELTA, Iraq, July 21, 2008 – The people of Kut, Iraq, now have more reliable electricity, thanks to the upgrade of a substation switch gear, which increases the availability of power for transmission and distribution. Bob Kagler, right) Wasit Provincial Reconstruction Team chief, delivers remarks while Capt. Hayder Adnan Ali Al-Saidy, Iraqi police liaison officer to coalition forces in Iraq’s Wasit province, translates during a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a refurbished electrical substation in Kut, Iraq, July 16, 2008. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Joe Thompson  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Workers replaced two...

Utility asks Brooklyn residents to avoid air-conditioning use despite heat wave Consolidated Edison Inc. urged thousands of customers to stop all non-essential electricity use as parts of Brooklyn, N.Y., suffered a power outage Sunday in the midst of heat wave. Con Ed said the outage had affected about 2,100 customers but that it had restored power to approximately 600 of those as of 11 a.m. Eastern time. As a result, it issued an appeal to those in the New York City borough's Sunset Park, Bay Ridge, Borough Park, and Park Slope neighborhoods "to discontinue their use of non-essential electrical appliances,...

Despite the pessimistic headlines on energy, a beneficial long-term trend is underway called decarbonization. In his 2005 book, The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century, writer James Howard Kunstler declared that when peak oil hits, “We will have to downscale every activity of everyday life, from farming, to schooling, to retail trade….Epidemic disease and faltering agriculture will synergize with energy scarcities to send nations reeling.” Nobel Prize winner Al Gore has said that global warming will likely result in “a string of terrible catastrophes.” And in his Academy Award–winning movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” he implies that...

China faces its worst power shortage in at least four years as soaring coal prices and government-set electricity tariffs force dozens of small power plants to shut rather than face mounting losses.Almost half of China's provinces have started to ration electricity as the country enters the peak summer season, facing what analysts describe as its worst coal shortage. Analysts warn that this year's electricity shortfall could be more severe than in 2004, when the country was affected by its worst power shortage in decades because of soaring demand for power as the economy boomed. China's problems mirror those of other...

MUSSAYIB — Iraqis are immersed in another summer of triple digit heat and electrical demand, largely fueled by use of electricity loving appliances like air conditioners, washing machines and microwave ovens, continues to be greater than the supply. Electricity generated from new and refurbished electrical generation facilities like the Mussayib Gas Generation Power Plant help reduce the gap between need and capacity by putting additional mega watts (MW) on the grid. The Gulf Region Division engineers and the Government of Iraq’s Ministry of Electricity (MoE) are working in partnership to solve the enduring problem of providing more electricity to the...

With fires still causing concern among California power grid operators, this week brings high heat that may lead to near-record electricity demand throughout the state, the grid manager said on Monday. The California Independent System Operator asked consumers to curb their power use in the peak 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. period Tuesday through Thursday as the grid nears capacity. The Cal ISO manages lines owned by the three big investor-owned utilities that handle 80 percent of the state's power flow. "This is going to be the first significant heat wave of the summer," said Cal ISO spokeswoman Stephanie McCorkle....

WASHINGTON, July 7, 2008 – Iraqi and coalition personnel are using the security improvements of the past year to make tremendous progress on the energy front, the director of energy for Multinational Force Iraq said yesterday. At a news conference in Baghdad, British Brigadier Carew Wilks said repairing Iraq’s neglected and battered energy infrastructure -- including pipelines carrying fuel and power lines carrying electricity -- is the focus of his office. “Much of Iraq's energy infrastructure is old and in poor condition and has not kept pace with demand,” Wilks said. “It will take many years and major investment to...

With Columbia Gorge turbines pumping out extra electricity, the agency had to quickly adjust its hydro generation Columbia Basin river managers had a close call this week when they were forced to cut back on hydropower after a surge in wind energy blasted through the system. The surge forced them to spill more water over dams, risking the health of migrating fish. For the first time, it also exposed serious kinks in a plan that was supposed to deal smoothly with just such emergencies. As it turned out, the spills weren't heavy enough to harm fish. But the federal Bonneville...

My father-in law keeps telling me our state (PA) is deregulating electric by the end of 2011 and that we are going to see a 30% increase in rates. I can;t seem to find anything about this anywhere. I always thought deregulation was a good thing...

LIBERALS AND YOUR AIR CONDITIONING Time Magazine ran a piece called "Kill Your Air Conditioning" in order to denigrate you evil people who have the "luxury" of keeping your air conditioning on in the summertime. The writer Joe Klein says that the "unnecessary refrigeration of America has become a chronic disease." Hmmm sounds a bit similar to Barack Obama calling for all of us to change our thermostats based on what other countries think is OK ... But moving on ... Klein says, "Air-conditioning is bad for the planet, and for national security, and for our balance-of-payments deficit." Even though...

Georgia court cites carbon in coal-plant ruling Mon Jun 30, 2008 8:18pm EDT HOUSTON (Reuters) - A Georgia state court on Monday invalidated a permit to build a 1,200-megawatt coal-fired power plant, citing the developers' failure to limit emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas blamed for global warming. An environmental group immediately praised the decision, predicting it would lead to reconsideration of many coal-fired power plants under development in the country. The order, from Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore, reversed an air permit issued earlier this year....

It could travel 150 miles without using a drop of gasoline, accelerate from zero to sixty mph in about eight seconds, and handled crisply. Total cost? Below $40,000, in monthly lease payments sometimes as low as $299. In a world of $4 gas, it sounds like the car that could save General Motors. There's only one problem. Every single one of these cars was sent to the crusher in 2003. The EV1, GM's short-lived electric car experiment, was cancelled when gas was selling for slightly more than one dollar per gallon. Now, with gas four times as expensive, consumers demanding...

Today, a giant new wind turbine soars the height of a London tower block above the Mendip hills where I live in Somerset. A perfect symbol of what is arguably the greatest single political madness engulfing Britain today. [snip] But there is another important point the Government is trying to conceal about this crackpot policy... This is the unavoidable fact that wind speeds around the British Isles are constantly varying, often providing no power at all - so that the electricity actually generated by these turbines represents only between a quarter and a third of their nominal 'capacity'. What this...

The Chevy Volt will cost $30,000. No, $35,000. Alright, how about $40,000… GM Vice Chairman and product development chief Bob Lutz told the Seattle Times that "the first-generation Volt will retail for about $40,000 and generate no profit for GM." The Times adds, "The company hopes to make money as it rolls out later versions of the vehicle and other plug-in models." This follows assurances from CEO Rick Wagoner back in May that the Volt would make its target price of $30,000, and could sell for even less. Car Domain, after sharing dinner with Lutz and other GM executives, reports...

Fig. 1. Dyson's switched reluctance motor features a rotor without coils and a stator with two sets of coils that are switched s Almost all domestic vacuum cleaners utilise an ac series wound electric motor to spin the fan that generates suction and airflow. This has remained the case for decades, even though this type of motor has significant drawbacks. First among these is the combination of carbon brushes and commutator that wears and leads to motor failures. Furthermore, the carbon dust tends to be exhausted to atmosphere, acting as a potentially harmful pollutant. In addition, because of the...

BAGHDAD, June 23, 2008 – At first glance, it doesn’t look like much: a construction site with a large wooden box strapped to a forklift, a crane, about 15 Iraqi and Multinational Division Baghdad soldiers, and a small pile of equipment. Darryl Steadman, right, a civilian contractor, helps members of the engineer battalion of 6th Iraqi Army Division in checking to see if a street light post is level. The post will hold a solar-powered street light. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Jerry Saslav, Multinational Division Baghdad   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Such was the humble beginning...

TORONTO – “Nobody knows de trouble I see,” goes the Negro spiritual. It could have been playing as background music in Toronto, where the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) held its annual convention this week. Things are not terrible for the U.S. electric utility industry at the moment. But the industry's future is more uncertain than it has ever been. The challenge facing the industry is that we are using more electricity than ever before, with our bigger homes that have more appliances and gadgets. To meet future demand, according to Jeffrey Sterba, chief executive officer of Albuquerque-based PNM Resources, the...

It's probably one of the toughest talking gigs in the country. As CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, retired Navy Adm. Frank Bowman serves as the public face for the U.S. nuclear industry. Although nuclear power is gaining in popularity, it remains extremely controversial. To get the industry's view across, Bowman speaks regularly at governors' conferences and local public forums. He's also well versed in the subject. He served as the director of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program and was responsible for operation of more than 100 reactors controlled by the Navy. Currently, he also serves on the board of...

BAGHDAD, June 18, 2008 – The Army Corps of Engineers Gulf Region Division is working to ensure Baghdad’s water supply with nonstop operations for the Karkh Water Treatment Plant near Taji, northwest of Baghdad. Workers install a multi-conductor cable from the Substation to the switchgear. This cable contains three copper conductors and a concentric wrapped ground. U.S. Army photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. In a $20 million project, the back-up generator system is being restored to keep potable water flowing to 50 percent of Baghdad residents without interruption or worries over low levels in reservoirs. The plant...

It seems like an idea any environmentalist would embrace: Build one of the world's largest solar power operations in the Southern California desert and surround it with plants that run on wind and underground heat. Yet San Diego Gas & Electric Co. and its potential partners face fierce opposition because the plan also calls for a 150-mile, high-voltage transmission line that would cut through pristine parkland to reach the nation's eighth-largest city. The showdown over how to get renewable energy to consumers will likely play out elsewhere around the country as well, as state regulators require electric utilities to rely...

120W fuel cell system Internal portion of the 120W fuel cell stack 300W generation system mounted in a luggage room (left) Genepax Co Ltd explained the technologies used in its new fuel cell system "Water Energy System (WES)," which uses water as a fuel and does not emit CO2. The system can generate power just by supplying water and air to the fuel and air electrodes, respectively, the company said at the press conference, which took place June 12, 2008, at the Osaka Assembly Hall. The basic power generation mechanism of the new system is similar to that of...

McCain, Obama, and Energy Independence By Rene Guerra "McCain Tells Oil Companies to Share Their Profits," reads the title of the CNS News report.Share their profits? What’s new here? Is it not that, anyway, what most companies do with legitimate company owners -- shareholders, that is -- who, by the way, in the case of oil companies, include most workers with 401K plans? Alas, McCain talks about “sharing� (codeword for “confiscating�) those profits by way of distributing them amongst everyone in America -- ticks, fleas and bedbugs included -- as if someone else’s profits were a piñata for all. McCain...

Despite being the finest people in the world, we Americans have a very short attention span – and even a shorter memory. We continuously have to complain, with the aid of cheap politicians, about “excessive” corporate profits. When we see someone making more money than we think they “deserve,” we are distraught and call for the government to “control” these profits. In essence, we forget about the massive good that a minimally regulated market has done to our quality of life, and point to these “unnecessary” profits to justify our skepticism about capitalism and appeal for increased government intervention. Oh...

Michigan legislature to raise your electric bill Posted: June 1, 2008 01:13 PM Updated: June 1, 2008 01:13 PM LANSING, Mich. -- State lawmakers plan to raise residential electric bills by as much as 15 percent so businesses and schools can pay less. Prices historically have been "skewed" by state regulators so residents pay less than the actual cost of electricity, while businesses pay more. Legislators acknowledge residential customers would experience some sticker shock, but many no longer want to force business customers to subsidize residential rates, in part because they think Michigan's business rates _ which traditionally run higher...

For almost 60 years, Dianne Odell lived inside a 7-foot-long metal tube, unable to breathe outside it but determined not to let it destroy her spirit. Odell, 61, died Wednesday when a power failure shut off electricity to the tube and stopped the pump drawing air into her lungs.

e often witness people around us making efforts keep electricity and water at two different poles and little does we realize that the electric engine revolution is spreading like a virus in the boating world as well. But if you happen to be riding over the speedboat on water then there cannot be a better power source than sun. Featured above is the Czeers MK1 model solar speedboat, a 30-knot photovoltaic dream in luscious shades of carbon fiber, solar cell and lush orange leather. Dutch founders claim it to the world’s first solar speedboat.

The Italian government said Thursday it would begin building nuclear power stations, reversing a 20-year ban in an initiative likely to spark strong resistance and take a long time to come to fruition. "During the term of this parliament, we will lay the first stone for the construction in our country of a group of new-generation nuclear power stations," Economic Development Minister Claudio Scajola told the Italian employers' federation Confindustria. "We can no longer avoid an action plan for a return to nuclear power," he said, recalling a campaign pledge by Italy's newly named right-wing prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, to...

RICHMOND-The State Corporation Commission has scheduled a public hearing for June 24 to receive comments on a request by Dominion Virginia Power to increase the company’s fuel rate on July 1. Dominion says the increase is necessary to cover the higher costs of fuel used to generate electricity. The company is seeking to raise its current fuel factor from 2.232 cents per kilowatt-hour to 3.893 cents. An average residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt hours in a month would see an increase of $16.61 on a monthly bill, or 18.3 percent. A public hearing on the request is scheduled for 10...

Residential Solar Embraces Leasing, Power Purchase Agreements by Charles W. Thurston, Correspondent California, United States [RenewableEnergyWorld.com] The use of power purchase agreements (PPAs) and similar leasing instruments to finance residential solar power installations is poised for a boom this year which could prove to be as healthy as the commercial solar PPA market was in 2007, several solar integrators in California suggest. "There were approximately 10,000 homeowners with solar power last year in California, and most say that there will be a 30-to-40 percent growth rate in the state this year," says Nat Kreamer, CEO of Sun Run, a Silicon...

Car makers are preparing to introduce plug-in electric cars in 2010, but their success will depend on players beyond their control: the electric utilities. The plug-ins are a new generation of hybrid cars that can run 10 to 40 miles on electric batteries before they have to tap their gasoline engines. This gives them, on a tank of gas, a driving range of as much as 600 miles without recharges to potentially thousands of miles with recharges.

SYNOPSIS: It also has received over $3.2 million in federal funding from the DOE to develop its 3D advanced batteries. The Peoria, Ill., startup capped off a $16 million third round of funding to continue developing and marketing its carbon and graphite foam-based battery technologies for commercial and military use. Khosla Ventures and Infield Capital, which signed on as new investors to lead the deal, were joined by Stark Capital, Caterpillar and other previous investors. Firefly, which claims its lead acid batteries are cheaper, lighter and more powerful than conventional ones, will release the Oasis battery this summer. Intended for...

Surging fuel costs are about to inflict more pain on consumers, this time in the form of rapidly rising electricity bills. Power prices are being pushed up across the U.S., with increases sometimes soaring into double digits, due to costlier coal and natural gas, the fuels used to make 70% of the nation's electricity. It usually takes awhile for fuel-price swings to show up in electricity bills because utilities typically buy most of what they need under long-term arrangements. As older contracts expire, though, utilities are facing the reality of higher costs. Proposed electricity-rate increases are cropping up all over...

The Sierra Club sent letters on Tuesday threatening to file suit to stop construction of eight coal-fired power plants in six states because, the environmental group claims, they violate the Clean Air Act. "This is the first major ramification on the ground from the (Washington) D.C. circuit kicking out the Bush administration's rules in February," said Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club's effort to stop coal power plants. In February, a federal appeals court in Washington ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency violated the Clean Air Act in not setting mandatory cuts for mercury emissions of power plants....

FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU — Approximately 120 men of the Chalabi tribe returned to their homes recently in the Sayafiyah region, about 25 kilometers southeast of Baghdad, more than a year after being driven out by al-Qaeda in Iraq extremists. Escorted by Sons of Iraq leader Jumah al-Kazarji and Soldiers of 1st Platoon, Company C, 1st Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), a large convoy of cars and trucks ushered the Chalabi men back to their abandoned village. Their reclamation of homes signaled the hopeful beginning of a new era of peace and...

Surely the reporter laughed herself silly while she was writing this. Los Angeles' DWP -- the dirtiest producer -- wants to be exempted from the mandate. They say it's not fair because privately owned So Cal Edison & PG&E are cleaner producers. Lenin would approve. Go read the whole thing. I provide a few snippets howlers in my post below....

JUNEAU -- An avalanche Wednesday has cut all hydroelectric power in Juneau. Alaska Electric Light & Power spokeswoman Gayle Wood said the massive avalanche was about three miles from the Snettisham power house. The mile-and-a-half-wide slide took out more than a mile of transmission line.

HiRISE image of Stickney Crater on Phobos. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona. Stickney crater is almost half the diameter of Phobos itself. Why did the impact not shatter this small moon? The color picture above is a composite from two pictures taken about 10 minutes apart in order to give the 3-dimensional aspect. A recent Picture of the Day described some of the large-scale formations on Phobos, especially Stickney Crater, but this more dramatic picture, which has recently become available, deserves another showing because it portrays the distinctive features of an Electric Discharge Machining (EDM) event with greater clarity. The...

Under the constellations Orion and Sirius, Iskandariyah Thermal’s smokestacks blow exhaust into the night at Forward Operating Base Iskan, Iraq, March 8.(U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Ben Brody. FORWARD OPERATING BASE ISKAN — There’s a reason the lights never go out at FOB Iskan, and it’s not because of Coalition forces. The brightly-lit Iskandariyah Thermal Power Plant located there has been chugging along since long before troops arrived. The plant is the dominant visual feature of FOB Iskan, with four enormous smokestacks rising above an imposing labyrinth of iron girders, spindly ladders and steaming pipes. The electricity is churned into...

A team of European scientists has deliberately triggered electrical activity in thunderclouds for the first time, according to a new paper in the latest issue of Optics Express, the Optical Society’s (OSA) open-access journal. They did this by aiming high-power pulses of laser light into a thunderstorm. At the top of South Baldy Peak in New Mexico during two passing thunderstorms, the researchers used laser pulses to create plasma filaments that could conduct electricity akin to Benjamin Franklin's silk kite string. No air-to-ground lightning was triggered because the filaments were too short-lived, but the laser pulses generated discharges in the...

A federal judge has rejected the appeal of a $24.2 million verdict against two railroad companies for injuries suffered by two teenagers climbing on a train car parked near Lancaster in 2002. U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence F. Stengel, who presided over the trial, handed down a 60-page opinion this week rejecting the arguments raised by the responsible railroad companies, Amtrak and Norfolk Southern Corp., denying the companies' request for a new trial or to reduce the amount of the award. The jury could have divided the blame between the young men and the railroad companies, but after the trial...

SALAH AH DIN PROVINCE — The town of Tuz, Iraq has played a significant role in Coalition operations since 2003, and today more of its 15,000 residents have reliable electricity. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in northern Iraq completed an electrical network project in February that brings electricity generated at the Bayji power plant to approximately 3,000 Iraqi homes in this village located 110 miles north of Baghdad. “We expanded the existing distribution system so that the same amount of electricity could be provided to more homes in the neighborhood,” said Oni Gomez, resident engineer in the Gulf Region...

As discussed in Fallout from the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the United States federal government is taking a more and more integral role in the distribution and transmission of electricity and in the energy sector throughout the U.S. And such is the result of both federal regulations and laws mandating the deregulation of public utilities as well as the repeal of the Public Utilities Holding Company Act (PUHCA) of 1935, as mandated in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005). It will prove to have profound impacts on the future of not only the fiscal health of public...

Images from the Hubble Space Telescope have revealed a so-called "ring of dark matter" circling a galaxy cluster. Does dark matter exist? Or is electricity a better explanation for the structure of the universe? {Galaxy Cluster CL0024+17 with an overlay showing a supposed dark matter ring. Credit: NASA, ESA, M. J. Jee and H. Ford et al. (Johns Hopkins University)} In a recent announcement, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) reported the discovery of something in deep space that seems to confirm previously inferred observations of "dark matter." Although "dark matter" cannot be seen or detected by instruments, its...

FOB HAMMER — Soldiers of 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, working with the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity (MoE) representative, surveyed several damaged high-tension power line towers near al Durai’ya, March 17. The day prior, Lt. Col. Jack Marr, from Minneapolis, commander of 1-15th Inf. Regt., met with Iraqi Army leadership, the MoE, and Sheik Majid, the local Sons of Iraq (SoI) leader, to discuss repair of the towers. After surveying the site, the MoE agreed the government of Iraq would fund labor for the repairs and security for the laborers would be provided by SoI in the area. “Sheik Majid...

Coal-producing states that supply nearly half of the nation’s electricity are feeling squeezed as efforts to combat global warming outpace technology needed to make the nation’s most abundant fossil fuel burn more cleanly. In 2007, proposals for 59 coal plants were scrapped in 24 states, either by state regulators concerned about the effects of carbon-dioxide emissions or by power companies worried about the future costs of pollution, according to data from the Sierra Club. Now, governors and other officials from major mining states are intensifying calls to expand technologies to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions from coal power ...~~snip~~ Coal is now...

It's official: Daylight Saving Time is a bust. Designed (and recently extended) as a measure to save energy in a period of inflated electricity prices, an in-depth University of California study has now shown that DST doesn't save anyone any money at all. In fact, it's costing consumers extra, to the tune of $3.19 in extra utility bills per year. The study was made possible because of the peculiarities of the state of Indiana, which was only partially on DST until 2006. When the whole state finally went DST (to sync with the national business day), some comparisons vs. the...

A Harvard biology professor’s fascination with seafloor microbes has led to the development of a revolutionary, low-cost power system consuming garbage, compost, and other waste that could provide light for the developing world. Assistant Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Peter Girguis has developed a fuel cell run by the natural activity of anaerobic microbes. The cells can be manufactured for just a few U.S. dollars, putting them within reach of many of the world’s poor who today do not have access to electricity. Though the power output is relatively low, Girguis said it should be sufficient to run low-energy...

Loss of wind causes Texas power grid emergency Wed Feb 27, 2008 8:11pm EST HOUSTON (Reuters) - A drop in wind generation late on Tuesday, coupled with colder weather, triggered an electric emergency that caused the Texas grid operator to cut service to some large customers, the grid agency said on Wednesday. Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said a decline in wind energy production in west Texas occurred at the same time evening electric demand was building as colder temperatures moved into the state. The grid operator went directly to the second stage of an emergency plan at 6:41...

IT’S not easy being green—nor is it cheap. With the best will (and some of the most generous handouts) in the world, solar power still makes little sense for the average homeowner, even in sunny southern California. Under pressure from his environmentally conscious ten-year-old daughter, your correspondent has spent the past week talking to experts around the state and running the numbers to see if he could reduce Mayhem Manor’s carbon footprint. Solar power ought to be the answer. The house faces south-east, lacks trees or other shadow-casting obstructions, and its flat roof offers ample space for a sizable solar...