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During the first quarter of 2009, total U.S. electricity consumption fell by an estimated 3 percent compared to the same period last year, according to data from the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration. EIA said the fall is largely due to weak industrial consumption.
Expected residential retail sales growth during the year’s second half is expected to slightly offset continued declines in industrial electricity sales. Total consumption for all of 2009 is projected to fall 1.8 percent and then rise by 1.2 percent in 2010.
The decline in overall electricity generation, combined with projected increases from natural gas, nuclear and renewable (hydroelectric and wind) generation sources, are expected to lead to a 4.6 percent fall this year in coal consumption by the electric power sector. EIA forecasts that electric power sector coal consumption will be 994 million short tons (MMst) in 2009, the first time since 2002 that annual consumption would fall below the billion short ton level. Next year’s expected uptick in electricity generation is forecast to lead to a 1.7 percent increase in the sector’s coal consumption.
The monthly average Henry Hub natural gas spot price is expected to stay under $4 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf) until late in the year. EIA said abundant natural gas supplies and weak demand (driven by an 8 percent decline in industrial sector consumption) will likely hold prices at that level. The price is projected to increase from an average $4.13/Mcf in 2009 to an average $5.49/Mcf in 2010 as expected economic growth boosts industrial consumption.
While total natural gas consumption remains hampered by the broad economic downturn, EIA said low natural gas prices persisting into the fourth quarter of this year are expected to lead to a 2.7 percent increase in electric power sector consumption in 2009. In 2010, electric power sector consumption is expected to remain flat as natural gas prices rise relative to coal prices.—David Wagman
B&W Plans a New Nuclear Power Reactor
The Babcock & Wilcox Co. plans to deploy a scalable Advanced Light Water Reactor that can be installed in increments of 125 MW. The plant would have a five-year operating cycle between refueling and an overall 60-year lifespan.
B&W told the NRC it plans to submit an application in 2011 for the reactor’s design certification.
 B&W mPower nuclear reactor design. Courtesy B&W. |
In addition, B&W said it received a Letter of Intent from Tennessee Valley Authority to begin evaluating a potential lead plant site for the B&W “mPower” reactor. A Memorandum of Understanding was signed by B&W, TVA and a consortium of regional municipal and cooperative utilities to explore building a fleet of the reactors to meet the consortium’s need to diversify its power generation assets.
B&W said its reactor represents “Generation III++ nuclear technology” that can be certified, manufactured and operated within today’s existing U.S. regulatory, industrial supply chain and utility operational infrastructure.
B&W expects the use of proven ALWR design features, together with a passive safety philosophy, will minimize plant licensing challenges, enhance safety performance and contribute to reliable plant operation.
 A single B&W mPower nuclear reactor module inside its own independent, underground containment. Courtesy B&W. |
The Nuclear Steam Supply System (NSSS) would be manufactured in existing B&W facilities in North America and rail-shipped to construction sites.
B&W said nuclear security and near-term management of used fuel would be improved through the underground containment design that accommodates storage of fuel for the reactor’s planned 60-year life.
B&W also formed a new business unit, B&W Modular Nuclear Energy LLC, to lead the development, licensing and delivery of reactor projects. Christofer Mowry was been named President and Chief Executive Officer of B&W Modular Nuclear Energy LLC.—David Wagman
TVA to Build 880 MW Gas Fired Plant
The Tennessee Valley Authority will build an 880 MW, $820 million natural gas power plant in northeastern Tennessee to comply with a court order stemming from a North Carolina air quality lawsuit.
The new plant would be as large as TVA’s coal-fired John Sevier plant, which a federal judge has targeted for new pollution controls.
U.S. District Judge Lacy Thornburg ruled in January that four TVA coal plants in Tennessee and Alabama, including the John Sevier station, were fouling North Carolina’s air under a lawsuit brought by the state in 2006. He ordered the plants cleaned up by the end of 2011.
TVA petitioned for an extra year, a request which the judge turned down. TVA said it will appeal.
The utility said the judge’s schedule could add $1 billion to the cost of upgrades and would be logistically difficult for John Sevier due to its location at the eastern end of its transmission system.
TVA estimates John Sevier will have to be shut for 20 months to install the emission controls. The TVA board agreed to postpone two projects of comparable worth—building a combined-cycle gas plant and expanding a gas turbine—and shift the work to the new gas plant, which could cost $930/kW.
TVA said it expects to have three gas turbines online by the end of 2011 and a heat recovery steam generator by the summer of 2012. TVA is considering a site near the Sevier plant.—David Wagman
Painting a Canadian Energy Mosaic
Energy leaders across Canada will spend the next several months in a series of 10 dialogues that will seek to paint a portrait of the country’s energy profile in the runup to the 21st World Energy Congress, which convenes in Montreal, Quebec in September 2010.
The meetings will take place across Canada and will consider the range of energy opportunities and challenges facing the federation of provinces.
 Policy dictates that not less than 50 percent of Ontario’s electricity will be generated by nuclear sources. |
“To get a national view you need to look at the 13 provinces and the federal government,” said Murray Stewart, president of the Energy Council of Canada. The council is a founding member of the World Energy Council whose 95 member countries gather once every three years in a formal Congress to discuss energy policy. The World Energy Council is perhaps the only group that looks at energy on a global scale through studies, research, trade and policy scenarios.
Closer to home, the Canadian energy council helped Ontario’s government devise an energy efficiency plan several years ago.
Much of the council’s work is research, but a lot is also focused on identifying best practices, Stewart said. Leading up to the World Energy Congress in Rome in 2007, for example, work focused on pinpointing strategies that proved useful at reducing carbon as part of a policy addressing climate change.
As a global energy leader, Canada’s resources include oil sands reserves, uranium and hydroelectricity, a substantial portion of which is exported to the United States.
In turn, each of Canada’s provinces offers a unique energy profile. Nova Scotia in the East is powered primarily with electricity derived from native coal, although efforts are underway to harness tides in the Bay of Fundy as a major renewable energy resource.
Farther west, policy dictates that not less than 50 percent of Ontario’s electricity will be generated by nuclear sources. The province is on track to retire its final coal-fired power plants by 2014, replacing their output with natural gas in the short term and nuclear, hydro, wind and solar longer-term.
Neighboring Quebec is powered almost entirely by hydroelectricity with enough energy resources left over for significant exports to the Northeastern U.S.
Manitoba’s and Saskatchewan’s electricity resources are primarily hydro as is British Columbia’s. Sandwiched in between is energy powerhouse Alberta, which is home to the economically important and environmentally controversial oil sands deposit, but is also powered largely by coal. Alberta is the focus for much of Canada’s investment in carbon capture and storage research and also may be the site of a future nuclear power plant to help harvest the oil sands resource.
With such a sweep of resources, Canada seems set to offer the 2010 World Energy Congress a good platform on which to discuss environmental issues related to energy.
Stewart said the Congress will also discuss what is referred to by organizers as the “four A’s” of energy: access, availability, acceptability and accountability. Access relates to managing global energy demand, availability refers to building adequate energy supplies, acceptability points to developing sustainable solutions and accountability considers issues such as regulation, permitting and financing.
The forums taking place across Canada in the coming months are the first time a comprehensive effort has been made to write a single national energy story, Stewart says. Their results may help the provincial and federal governments craft future energy policy and gets back to the idea of creating a Canadian energy mosaic, Stewart said.
The next forum takes place October 21 in Calgary, Alberta. The focus there likely will be oil and natural gas as well as foreign trade. For more information, contact the Energy Council of Canada. There you can also learn more about the upcoming World Energy Congress.—David Wagman
FutureGen Gets New Life
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu last month announced an agreement with the FutureGen Alliance that advances construction of the first commercial scale, fully integrated carbon capture and sequestration project in the United States.
But within days of the announcementAmerican Electric Power Co. and Southern Co. said they would withdraw from the project. AEP said it will spend some of the money previously earmarked for the investment on carbon capture and storage at its Mountaineer Plant in west Virginia. Southern will focus on coal gasification at a power plant in Mississippi and a carbon research center in Alabama.
 FutureGen wins a second life, but AEP and Southern Co. both drop out. |
This past March, DOE said it made a $500 million math error in 2008, leading the agency to withdraw support saying the carbon capture and sequestration project had nearly doubled in cost, which the Bush administration thought too expensive. Soon after the March announcement, Chu met with Alliance representatives and said the project had merit.
FutureGen is aimed at reducing the costs of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) by using an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant that gasifies coal, thus allowing a simplified form of capturing carbon dioxide (CO2).
Under terms of a provisional agreement for the newly revived FutureGen, DOE could contribute almost $1.1 billion to the project, $1 billion of which comes from Recovery Act funds for carbon capture and storage research. FutureGen Alliance members would contribute $400 million to $600 million. Once a detailed cost estimate and fundraising activities are complete, DOE and the Alliance will decide early in 2010 either to move forward or to discontinue the project. The FutureGen Alliance is a consortium of 12 U.S. and foreign energy companies. The project was first proposed nearly a decade ago. Both parties agreed a decision to move forward is preferred.
The project aims to push IGCC’s potential carbon capture and storage advantage beyond its present stage by removing CO2 from an even more concentrated mixture of hydrogen and carbon moNOXide, then burning the pure hydrogen in more efficient (but as yet unproven) ultra-high-temperature turbines.
Original plans in 2003 called for FutureGen to produce both electricity and hydrogen, considered then the likely basis of a new transportation infrastructure, whereby vehicles would be powered by fuel cells fueled with hydrogen. According to Alliance spokesman Lawrence Pacheco, hydrogen remains part of the proposal, but “the Alliance is working with DOE to reconfigure the facility to reduce cost and technological risk. Several options will be considered.” Hydrogen production for commercial use will remain an important component of the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative and other research initiatives aimed at fundamentally changing the way vehicles are powered.
FutureGen plans to engage with the international community in advancing carbon capture and storage technology on a global scale. Under this approach, multiple commercial plants would each produce at least 300 MW (or be of “commercial size”) and sequester at least 1 million metric tons of CO2 each year.—Steve Blankinship
Business Briefs
Engineering and construction firm Fluor said it is forming a business line to focus on global renewable energy for clients in the solar, wind and biomass power markets. Fluor said the line will complement its nuclear, gas and solid fueled, and air quality control offerings. It will be led by Brad Friesen, a Fluor executive and former head of the company’s gas fueled line.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission renewed operating licenses for Southern Co’s Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia for an additional 20 years. The new licenses for Units 1 and 2 will expire on Jan. 16, 2047 and Feb. 9, 2049. Southern submitted the application for the new licenses in June 2007. The Vogtle units represent the 53rd and 54th reactor licenses renewed by the NRC. Twelve other applications are under review.
Vogt Power International Inc. will supply a heat recovery steam generator for the Florida Municipal Power Agency’s 300 MW Unit 4 at the Cane Island Power Park The company will supply a three pressure level HRSG for use behind a GE-7FA gas turbine, including an auxiliary fired duct burner for higher efficiency and selective catalytic reduction to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions.
For news updates throughout the day visit Power Engineering magazine’s web site www.power-eng.com. There you can sign up for our weekly electronic newsletter for still more news, information, events and links.
Look to Our Weekly Electronic Newsletter for These Articles
- 7 myths about green jobs, published June 9
- SEPA: Electric utilities rise to meet solar call to action, published June 2
- Addressing wind generation interconnection issues, published May 26
- DOE taps four nuclear proposals for due diligence, published May 19
