NewEnergyNews: SOLAR POWER PLANTS COMING TO INDIA

NewEnergyNews

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    Anne B. Butterfield of Daily Camera and Huffington Post, is a biweekly contributor to NewEnergyNews

  • Colorado's Elegant Solution to Fracking (April 23, 2012)
  • Anne Butterfield (Huffington Post via New EnergyNews)

    Eventually those local moratoriums against fracking will expire in Boulder, Longmont and Erie. And residents will worry anew about toxic fracking operations inching up on schools and neighborhoods in pursuit of a product that goes "poof" the instant it's used. Nice value ~ not.

    And it's timely that the University of Colorado at Denver School of Public Health just announced a study which finds that air pollution within a half mile of frack-ops have toxic emissions five times over federal safety standards, causing elevated life time cancer risks and respiratory and neurological effects for nearby residents. Rep. Diana DeGette is now urging the Environmental Protection Agency to consider Colorado's study as they finalize air standards for fracking.

    It has also just come out that fracking is inching up on agriculture to compete for Colorado's water. Taking only .08 of a percent per year, it's a smidge for sure, but that water gets so polluted it must be disposed in a way that removes it from the hydrologic cycle. And that's not pretty when we're looking down the craw of a new drought kicked off with an historic climate change induced heat wave plus a horrifying wildfire this season.

    Permanently voiding precious Colorado water out of the hydrologic cycle feels even worse in view the fact such water can be lost for naught when the depletion rate on fracking wells is 63-85 percent in the first year, according to Dave Hughes of the Geological Survey of Canada. This can mean fruitless water waste when drilling down the slippery slope of diminishing marginal returns.

    But Colorado will need all the more gas, as the Clean Air Clean Jobs Act requires Xcel Eenrgy in Colorado to soon retire 900 megawatts of coal burning capacity. The act also requires that the natural gas used for recouping that coal-fired capacity comes from in state (see page 18 here). That puts upward pressure on fracking all over the state. This means more tangles between fracking and populated areas, and more permanent loss of precious Colorado water. It seems like Colorado may have backed itself into a box canyon, where residents are cornered with fracking risks to land, air, water and health.

    But there's an elegant pathway to reducing Colorado's need for natural gas -- by using the sun in a familiar technology that is at least two times more efficient than solar photovoltaics. It's good old fashioned solar thermal - those rooftop panels that heat water.

    Colorado could amend the CACJA to promote solar thermal as a jobs intensive domestic energy supply that works with natural gas to heat homes, buildings, water and industrial processes. This could free drilling companies to sell excess Colorado gas out of state for much higher prices (see page 8 here), possibly gaining crucial industry support for this intrusion of renewables into their market. Higher profitability, less contentious drilling and more renewable energy jobs is the hope.

    In all of North American, Colorado is "ground zero" for the best conditions for producing huge benefits from solar thermal. It's the sunshine, cold ground water, high heating loads, renewables-savvy population and existing industry that can, if the state takes on robust targets, lead the nation in an industry that swaps jobs and skills in place of burning money. And burning money is what we do when we burn costly fuels that go poof the instant they're used.

    A robust Colorado plan for solar thermal could put the clean air and clean jobs back into the so-called, gas-friendly Clean Air Clean Jobs Act.

    And in case anyone has forgotten ~ there are huge economic risks with shale gas, a.k.a. the fracking boom, as the resource is almost certainly not as profitable, resourceful or as clean as hyped by industry. On deeper review, it's promising to be an economic bubble.

    Fracking is supposedly going to make our nation 100 years of cheap gas, as, amnesiac members of Congress and the President are wont to say. But various geological experts such as the Potential Gas Committe have poured cold water all over that flaming hype, detailing how the supply could be as little as 21 or even 11 years. And Arthur Berman, a widely regarded petro-geologist has commented that the industry reminds him of the sub prime mortgage mess and wrote, "U.S. shale plays share many characteristics with the gold rushes.... Both phenomena result from extreme promotion. Anyone can join. Every participant believes that they will get rich. Great amounts of capital are destroyed as entrants try to get a position. The bonanza is exhausted sooner than most expected and few profit in the end."

    So if you are one of the thousands of Coloradans who are waking up to the nightmare of fracking in your community - go online and read the Colorado Solar Thermal Roadmap. Then find every political leader you can to talk about it. Colorado would be wise to use its natural solar resources to hedge against an over-reliance on gas, one that shall expand as the CACJA requires. And coal with its rising prices is on the wane nationwide as well, which means the demand for gas will be a pressure cooker loaded with risk for our energy security, economy, and environment.

    Author's note: Want to support my work? Please "fan" me at Huffpost Denver, here (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anne-butterfield). Thanks.

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    Anne's previous NewEnergyNews columns:

  • Colorado's Elegant Solution to Fracking (April 23, 2012)
  • Shale Gas: From Geologic Bubble to Economic Bubble (March 15, 2012)
  • Taken for granted no more (February 5, 2012)
  • The Republican clown car circus (January 6, 2012)
  • Twenty-Somethings of Colorado With Skin in the Game (November 22, 2011)
  • Occupy, Xcel, and the Mother of All Cliffs (October 31, 2011)
  • Boulder Can Own Its Power With Distributed Generation (June 7, 2011)
  • The Plunging Cost of Renewables and Boulder's Energy Future (April 19, 2011)
  • Paddling Down the River Denial (January 12, 2011)
  • The Fox (News) That Jumped the Shark (December 16, 2010)
  • Click here for an archive of Butterfield columns

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    Some details about NewEnergyNews and the man behind the curtain: Herman K. Trabish, Agua Dulce, CA., Doctor with my hands, Writer with my head, Student of New Energy and Human Experience with my heart

    email: herman@NewEnergyNews.net

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    Your intrepid reporter

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      A tip of the NewEnergyNews cap to Phillip Garcia for crucial assistance in the design implementation of this site. Thanks, Phillip.

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    • Sunday, August 22, 2010

    SOLAR POWER PLANTS COMING TO INDIA

    India’s solar mission: Phase One Guidelines fall short of industry expectations
    Oliver Balch, 13 August 2010 (CSP Today)

    "The first phase of India’s solar mission is expected to see proposals for solar thermal projects well in excess of the initial 500MW allocation when the government officially invites requests…August 16…[because of] the potential that developers see in India’s nascent concentrated solar power (CSP) industry, if not wholesale approbation of the bidding guidelines…

    "Topping the list of concerns is the “not very attractive” designated tariff of Rupees 15.31 per kWh. Under such terms, developers can have little confidence of achieving a return on equity of 19% in the first decade, as the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) projects. A tariff of between Rs.17 – 18 per kWh [is thought to] be more realistic…[Developers say] government regulator CERC [underestimated project development] capital costs…[M]ore mature CSP markets such as Spain [have] capital investment of Euro 4.5 - 5 million per MW of capacity…[CERC calculated it at] Euro 3.85 million/MW…"

    click to enlarge

    "Added to these concerns is the reverse auction process…If the 500MW capacity cap for total projects is exceeded, as is widely anticipated, developers will be required to propose discounted tariffs…[testing] projects’ commercial viability even more…[and it] will hit small-scale developers hardest…[P]erformance guarantees of two million rupees (US$42,600) per MW could also exclude less well-capitalised players…

    "…[L]arger players fear entry barriers have been set too low, opening the door to heavy speculation by less experienced players and…[exclusion of] serious developers…A proposal to introduce a minimum capacity cap of 10MW [was not included and]… the 100 MW cap set by the guidelines limits more ambitious commercial projects…[A] lack of guarantees coupled with high proposal preparation costs could act as an additional disincentive to large developers…[F]ailed bidders will receive no special preference or priority…[in the 2013] second phase…[but must make] financial closure [in only 180 days] and [have only] 28 months to complete project construction…"

    India certainly has the sun. (click to enlarge)

    "The guidelines have prompted criticism not only for the conditions they include, but also for those they omit…[There are no] storage or hybridisation projects.

    "For all the criticisms of the guidelines, developers still see success in the current bidding stage as important for strategic positioning in the market…"

    posted by Herman K. Trabish @ 8:21 AM

    1 Comments:

    At 1:23 AM, Anonymous Solar Panel In India said...

    While the solar water heater work had been accorded to Chandigarh-based Solar Synergy, the solar power generation project would be set up by Delhi-based Punj Allied Company.

     

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