Locally Produced Hydro Power vs. “In-Stream Flows”

The following article describes a classic trade-off situation .  The positive efforts to produce electricity locally (Distributed Generation) via hydro could have serious and long-term negative impacts on availablity of water for a healthly fish population as well as creating water challenges as the Central Oregon population continues to grow.

And, as the article points out, there’s the additional concern that serious self-serving, “good-old-boy”, behind-closed-doors negotiations have been happening and that there’s a specific effort to withhold full disclosure from the public.

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Flushed Away: City hydro project could be a drain on Tumalo Creek
Eric Flowers – the Source Weekly – October 28, 2009

You wouldn’t guess it from the rain soaked streets this week or the water gushing down Tumalo Creek, but there are signs aplenty that the upper Deschutes basin is running out of water to meet the demand of farms, cities and fish – all of which have legal, as well as historical and biological, cases for getting their share of water, especially during the parched summer months.

Recent data indicates that well owners are drilling deeper to hit groundwater, hinting that population growth and other high-intensity uses like golf courses may be negatively impacting the aquifer – something that just a few years ago experts said wasn’t likely to happen under the current rules. Meanwhile, pending applications for new groundwater withdrawals are approaching the ceiling the legislature set up when it crafted a series of special rules to stave off a potential development moratorium.

In the case of Bend, conservation campaigns have done little to curb residents’ thirst. The city still ranks significantly higher than similarly sized cities in the valley for per capita water use. And the city council recently spiked a proposal to address the problem with a tiered-rate structure that would have charged big-time water users more than conservation-minded residents. Still, the city has prided itself on being a leader on the basin’s water issues, working collaboratively with groups like the Upper Deschutes Watershed Council, the Deschutes Resource Conservancy (DRC) and the local irrigation districts on river restoration efforts designed to restore habitat and pump up traditionally meager summer flows on the Deschutes River and its tributaries.

That’s why the city’s latest water initiative has left some environmental advocates puzzled. Buried inside Bend’s massive surface water treatment plan, which emerged last month, is an initiative that could more than double the city’s withdrawal from Bridge Creek, potentially wiping out some of the summer and winter flows downstream in Tumalo Creek, a major tributary to the middle Deschutes that has already had millions of dollars invested in restoration efforts to offset the effects of erosion and excessive water withdrawals.

The city has yet to release the exact details of its diversion plan, though a feasibility report was due out last month. One of the major elements of the plan, however, is already raising a cautionary flag with some observers. Specifically, the city is proposing to add a small hydropower project to its water supply when it replaces a pipeline that funnels a sizeable chunk of the city’s drinking water from Bridge Creek to the Outback storage facility. The city estimates that by pushing drinking water through a turbine system before funneling it into the storage tanks, it could generate $1.8 million worth of electricity.

The only problem: nobody, except maybe the city, knows just how much surface water – one of the basin’s most scarce and precious resources – the city would have to divert to meet those estimates. And right now the city isn’t talking. According to the Department of Water Resources, Bend holds certificates for about 36 cubic feet per second (cfs) of surface water in Bridge Creek, or about 16,000 gallons per minute. However, the city diverts only about 14 cfs of that on any given day. The rest of the water is set aside for irrigation and “in-stream” flows – the water that is left in the river for fish and all other manner of life that depend on the river for sustenance.

Juniper Ridge Hydro Project Begins

‘Boom’ begins Juniper Ridge hydro, canal piping project
KTVZ.com news sources – October 12, 2009

A thunderous roar from a small explosive charge marked the official start of construction Monday on the $26 million Juniper Ridge Project, an unprecedented project that will return water supplies to the Deschutes River and generate carbon-free energy.

U.S. Congressman Greg Walden, along with state officials, representatives from the Central Oregon Irrigation District, Deschutes County, the Deschutes River Conservancy and Portland General Electric Company attended the groundbreaking ceremony five miles north of Bend along Highway 97.

Immediately following the ceremony, construction crews began replacing 2.5 miles of open irrigation canal, owned and operated by Central Oregon Irrigation District (COID), with underground steel pipe and an innovative, small hydropower system.

By conserving water supplies previously lost through the porous canal, the Juniper Ridge Project will benefit Deschutes River salmon and reintroduced steelhead.

Approximately 20 cubic-feet per second of water presently diverted from the Deschutes River for irrigation purposes by COID will be permanently returned to the river, increasing instream river flows for fish and wildlife species.

Once the new pipe is in place, a small hydropower unit will be installed in the summer of 2010. This state-of-the-art unit will generate up to 3.37 megawatts of clean, renewable electricity annually, or enough power for roughly 2,000 homes.

Renewable Energy Shortcoming: It’s Intermittent

Seeking green power solutions for hazy days
Bend Bulletin – August 2, 2009

Portland General Electric got a lesson in one of the shortcomings of renewable energy last week.

With temperatures above 100 degrees in Portland, the company broke its all-time record for summer power consumption Monday, then again Tuesday, and also on Wednesday.

All the while, the company’s Bigelow Canyon Wind Farm 140 miles east of Portland was producing next to no power. The winds that usually suck cool air up the Columbia River and keep summers mild had ceased, baking Portland and idling the turbines at Bigelow Canyon — just when they were most needed.

If wind and solar are going to play a bigger part in meeting the country’s electrical demand, utilities will need to get faster at reacting every time the wind dies down or a cloud moves in front of the sun. Bend’s PV Powered is working on solving a part of the problem.

The federal government recently awarded the company $3 million to get to work building the machines needed to create a future network of thousands or even millions of small-scale solar generating systems.

The Solar Energy Grid Integration System is an initiative of the Department of Energy that seeks to make solar power cost-competitive with other forms of power generation by 2015. Right now, solar power makes up only a tiny fraction of the total energy consumed in the United States, but that could change quickly if current treends continue.

According to a 2007 Energy Department report, 5 to 10 percent of electricity customers could be using some form of solar power within 10 years if homeowners continue adding solar panels to their homes at the current rate.

Woody Biomass Energy: Another Corn Ethanol Debacle?

Unfortunately the following article jumps all over the place, tries but fails to be “fair and balanced”, and approaches a modestly complex subject too simplistically. Part of the role of journalism is to educate readers and to give them intellectual tools for thought and does not give both sides of an argument equal weight when it is not so (i.e. fire suppression is many times a greater culprit for our unhealthy forests than an environmental opposition to logging). 

For just one example, instead of writing the following sentence: They say once you start transporting biomass by truck, or train, or ship, you lose the benefits of biomass because the closer the power plants can be to the forests, the better off you are,  it would be much better to explain WHY you would be better off by explaining the concept of Distributed Generation. And by the way, just who is the “They” who say this?

Just as there are worthwhile ways to turn foodstuffs into energy (biofuels made from “waste” cooking grease) there are worthwhile ways to turn woody biomass into energy (locally produced energy from “waste” wood left over from harvesting timber and from the manufacture of products from that timber).  But growing a corn, a valuble foodstuff, specifically to make ethanol or cutting down trees to burn to make electricity simply does not make sense environmentally or economically. The ethanol industry has clearly proven that this approach to “clean” energy is folly.

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Could Oregon’s Trees Make Us Energy Exporter?
By Ethan Lindsey – OPB News – June 22, 2009

The dictionary defines biomass as living matter in one area.

But the second definition for biomass is what could give Oregon a leading role in the next century.

“Plant materials and animal waste used a source of fuel.”

Using plant and tree materials for energy is good news for Oregon.

Half of the state is forest-land.

But like this national forest between Bend and Sisters, many of Oregon’s forests are unhealthy.

Between a century of fire suppression and decades of environmental opposition to logging – the tree stands here are too thick and too dry.

Bend to Consider Tumalo Creek Hydro Project

While the jury is out on this idea – there is a scheduled feasibility report due later this summer – it pains CO Renewable that before it is more than an idea the anti-tax folk start a negativity campaign.  The only way Central Oregon – or the nation for that matter – will wean its way off of energy produced outside of our boundaries is to build local power production facilities and incorporate them into a Distributed Generation energy system.  And the only way such a thing can happen is for money to be raised by the eventual users – local taxpayers – via some sort of  tax so these renewable energy projects can be built.

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Bend Considers Building A Hydroelectric Project On Tumalo Creek
By Ethan Lindsey – OPB News – June 10,2009

Many cities and irrigation districts across the state have developed new plans to build small-scale hydroelectric projects.

These aren’t your grandparents’ dams – they are smaller generators — on pipes — that take advantage of the energy in the stream flow.

The Seneca Biomass Plant Debate Continues

An on-line comment on Todd Payne’s Guest Viewpoint (below) claimed that the recent American Lung Association report, State of the Air: 2009 gave Lane County a failing grade for particulates.  Much of those particulates come from field burning.  Will the Seneca biomass plant significantly add to the particulates?  Read the well-written editorial below.

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Biomass plant will cut Seneca’s carbon release
By Todd Payne* – Guest Viewpoint – April 29, 2009

As the project manager for Seneca Sustainable Energy’s cogeneration plant, I have a hard time understanding the criticism directed at this renewable and reliable source of power.

As we explored the development of the facility, I saw a great benefit in reducing greenhouse gases by using woody biomass rather than natural gas to fuel our sawmill’s dry kilns. Plus, we would generate 18.8 megawatts of local electricity, enough to meet the energy needs of 13,000 homes. This is the kind of project encouraged by the Federal Energy Management Program and by the Oregon Department of Energy.

Everyone I spoke with as we developed our plans indicated that our new facility was a step in the right direction. No one raised any issues. I believe that’s because the benefits of our facility outweigh its air emissions.

We are addressing climate change by replacing a fossil fuel with woody biomass, and reducing our carbon dioxide emissions by 3,500 tons annually.

Solar-Powered South Florida City – Why Not Central Oregon?

Coming soon to the Sunshine State: the sunshine city
By Michael Grunwald – Time Magazine – April 9, 2009

An NFL lineman turned visionary developer today is unveiling startlingly ambitious plans for a solar-powered city of tomorrow in southwest Florida’s outback, featuring the world’s largest photovoltaic solar plant, a truly smart power grid, recharging stations for electric vehicles and a variety of other green innovations. The community of Babcock Ranch is designed to break new frontiers in sustainable development, quite a shift for a state that has never been sustainable, and lately hasn’t had much development.

“Some people think I got hit in the head a few too many times,” quips developer Syd Kitson, who spent six years in the trenches for the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys before entering the real estate business in the mid-1980s. “But I still believe deeply in Florida. And the time has come for something completely different.”

To anyone familiar with southern Florida’s planning-nightmare sprawl of golf courses, strip malls and cookie-cutter subdivisions named after the plants and animals they replaced, Kitson’s vision for his solar-powered, smart-growth, live-where-you-work city of 45,000 people east of Fort Myers is breathtakingly different. That’s why the press conference held today revealing his development plans for the historic Babcock Ranch property will feature representatives from the Audubon Society, the World Wildlife Fund and the Sierra Club.

Klamath Area Biomass Plant Using British Technology is Proposed

Biomass energy projects such as the one described below are a possible step towards increasingly necessary Distributed Generation but the question still arises: can the nearby area provide sufficient woody biomass (and, in the case below, solid waste from urban areas) to allow the power plant to operate in a sustainable and eco-friendly fashion?

It is generally accepted that the woody biomass and solid waste necessary to fuel a biomass power plant must be available within a 50-mile radius of the plant.  Much beyond that distance the additional cost (mostly diesel fuel for trucks) usually makes the collection of fuel for the plant simply too expensive.  Sufficient fuels for the long-term and located within a financially feasible collection area are two questions addressed in the comments and related article at: Is Biomass Energy Actually Viable Long-term?

In addition, based on quotes in the article below, the proposed plant appears to be one that would utilize a British-based technology that uses decomposing biomass to produce gas that in turn is burned to generate electricity.  If so, then there is a major challenge to limit the amount of greenhouse gases released by the power generation process.

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Klamath Tribes propose biomass energy plant
Herald and News – September 11, 2008
 
The Klamath Tribes are seeking partners for a proposed biomass generation facility planned for the former Crater Lake Mill site 25 miles north of Chiloquin.

Preliminary plans call for an 8-megawatt plant that would use a variety of biomass sources, such as woody material and solid waste from urban areas. At full capacity, the plant could provide energy for about 4,000 homes.

The plant would cost between $8 million and $12 million and is planned for the former Crater Lake Mill site.

Jef Mitchell, a Klamath tribal council member, said the British technology would use of a variety of biomass sources instead of just one.

“The technology is really extraordinary,” said Mitchell.

Woody material or other matter would be decomposed and 90 percent of it would become gas to drive generators. The rest would be a solid carbon byproduct.

If Eugene Can Do Solar, Why Not Bend?

There are dozens of medical offices, urban business parking lots, health care providers and gas stations in Bend that could easily erect solar carports at their businesses.  And Bend has – or claims to have – much more sunshine than Eugene yet the “wet side” Willamette Valley town has at least five solar carport projects to none in Bend. 

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Eugene parking lots get solar-power caps
By Diane Dietz – The Register-Guard - May 1, 2008

The solar energy explosion under way on business rooftops in Eugene is spilling out onto parking lots as firms erect free-standing solar carports to shield their employees and customers and give their companies extra electrical power.

Driven by generous incentives and tax credits, five solar carport projects sprang up in Eugene during the past few years. A medical office, an urban business parking lot, a health care provider and a gas station all have erected solar carports at their businesses.

The carports consist of photovoltaic arrays on slanted, rectangular roofs set on standard steel pillars. From six to 10 cars park between painted lines under each cover.

In California, banks of these free-standing solar carports cover open-air parking lots. They save energy by keeping cars cool — they need less air conditioning at midday to be bearable — and they generate energy to feed to the grid, or for other nearby purposes.