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.

Deschutes County Considers Allowing Taller Wind Turbines

Deschutes County May Let More Wind Power Bloom
Keisha Burns – KTVZ.COM – October 7, 2009

Another issue discussed, which has hit a roadblock before, was whether to allow taller wind-energy turbines in the area. Current county restrictions prevent structures over 30 feet in most zoning districts, but that could change as soon as next year.

Planning Director Nick Lelack said many residents are for the idea, but adding wind turbines has its pros and cons.

“Generally we hear that people support them,” he said. “The key issue is when they are proposed on their neighbor’s property, and maybe between the neighbor’s property and view of the mountains, something of that nature.”

Luke said they won’t move forward with an ordinance until they hear from the public about any concerns, starting the public process with the county planning commission.

“That’s the process that I would favor, so the citizens would have the opportunity to comment on it,” he said.

After a proposal is drafted and debated before planning commissioners, commissioners will take up the issue again, to see if the public favors the idea, before moving forward.

The wind-power issues could be part of the ongoing update of the county’s overall land use plan – the first total rewrite in some 30 years – or it could be handled separately, Luke said.

CEC Current Winner vs. Cyrus Family Over Transmission Line

CEC wins round in fight over transmission line
By Jim Cornelius – NuggetNews.com – September 22, 2009

Central Electric Cooperative (CEC) won a round in an ongoing battle with the Cyrus family of Sisters, and others, over the Jordan Road transmission line.

Deschutes County Hearings Officer Karen Green ruled last week that “CEC has a common-law vested right to complete, operate and maintain the entire Jordan Road line upgrade from the Cline Falls substation to the Black Butte substation.”

CEC had claimed that right under property rights Measure 49. The Cyrus family and Trail Crossing Trust contested the right. The Cyruses have long maintained that CEC did not have the right to install tall new steel towers for the Jordan Road line upgrade and they have a case pending in Deschutes County Circuit Court arguing that the poles trespass on their property.

Oregon’s Energy Tax Credits Under Fire

State lawmakers target energy tax credit costs
Benefit to large wind-power projects is likely to be reduced
By Nick Budnick – The Bulletin – September 3, 2009

Lawmakers and state regulators plan to put new restrictions on a state tax credit that has helped Central Oregon’s renewable energy businesses.

Lawmakers for the Senate and House revenue committees met last week in Salem to discuss the state’s budget picture, including the business energy tax credit, or BETC, which encourages investment in alternative energy, recycling and energy conservation measures.

Lawmakers were told that the tax credit is estimated to cost the state $168 million over the next two years. That’s a jump of $24 million over the previous estimate, and about $100 million more than it cost the state in the last two-year budget cycle.

Earlier this year, lawmakers had tried to curb the tax credit, shaving about $20 million by limiting the benefit provided to large wind-power projects.

But that legislation, House Bill 2472, was vetoed by Gov. Ted Kulongoski.

Now, however, legislative observers think lawmakers will muster the two-thirds supermajority necessary to override Kulongoski’s veto when they return to Salem for an expected special session in February.

Tollgate Substation Has Its Detractors

There are many challenges to fixing, upgrading, maintaining and expanding the grid. Trying to please homeowners whose homes are near new or enlarged substations are just one of the challenges.  It’s clear there are no simple answers.

The trade-offs are addressed in the very last paragraph of the article: “… once the system is completely converted to 115kv power, the system will be more reliable and more redundant, reducing or eliminating outages due to overload, and making outages due to weather or accidents less lengthy.”

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Tollgate substation nearing completion
By Jim Cornelius – Nugget News – August 25, 2009
 
Almost all the construction is complete and landscape berms are newly planted. The Central Electric Cooperative’s Tollgate substation is set to go on line this fall.

CEC is waiting for one last piece of equipment that was delayed in coming from the manufacturer.

“We’re about a month-and-a-half, two months from completely energizing and basically saying we’re done,” said CEC spokesman Alan Guggenheim.

One major feature of the new substation is completed. The Deschutes County Hearings Officer required CEC to create six-foot tall landscaped berms to partially obscure the substation from the views of residents whose homes at the edge of the subdivision look out onto the massive new steel structure.

Sisters Landscaping Company last week planted the berms with native grasses, sage, Oregon grape and other indigenous species. Three weeks ago, CEC reached an agreement allowing the utility to irrigate the berms using Tollgate water.

“We’ll water according to the rules of the homeowners’ association,” Guggenheim said. “We’ll irrigate pretty intensively for the next couple of weeks. Nature takes over at a certain point and determines what is going to take root and what the deer are going to eat.”

New Law Provides Energy Loans to Oregon Homeowners

Bill offers home insulation retrofits
An Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Technology law will provide $15 million in loans in the next 2 years
 
By David Steves – The Register-Guard – August 3, 2009

How would you like to be able to add insulation that keeps your house cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter — and then pay for it with the money you could end up saving on your utility bill over the next 20 years?

It may sound too good to be true, but it’s just what new state legislation promises to deliver.

The new Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Technology bill, signed into law in Eugene by Gov. Ted Kulongoski, will provide $15 million in loans over the next two years to Oregon homeowners. Unlike conventional home improvement loans, the money can be repaid with utility bills.

The bill’s authors, including Rep. Chris Edwards, D-Eugene, say they fully expect that the reduced energy usage — and lower utility bills — will provide consumers with enough savings to pay back the loans.

Edwards was part of a bipartisan group of House members who came up with the bill and worked it through the 2009 session. It is now awaiting Oregon Department of Energy rule-making so it can be tested in a few areas.

Eugene is one of five places in Oregon to express interest in piloting the program. If it’s included as a testing area, then Eugene residents could be taking out loans and hiring contractors to retrofit their homes for greater energy efficiency or to add renewable energy components by late this year or early next year, Edwards said.

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.

Is Hydro Really “Green” Energy?

Key sentences in this article: “Longtime Oregonians remember when hydro constituted more than 90 percent of the state’s power a few decades ago. [But] now, Oregon gets just 42-percent of its energy from hydroelectric power.”

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Hydropower: It’s Renewable, But Is It Green?
By Ethan Lindsey, OPB News -  May 11, 2009

A federal judge in Portland is considering how the hydroelectric dams on the Columbia Rver interact with salmon.

At the same time, environmentalists continue to push the Obama Administration to remove several of the hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River.

Hydroelectric power has long been part of the Northwest’s fabled history. In fact, Woody Guthrie wrote a whole album about building the Columbia River dams.

But in our clean energy future, is hydropower really “green” enough?

Hydro power and the Northwest. They’re nearly synonymous, even for people who’ve never heard Guthrie’s “Roll on Columbia.”