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  • Spanish Wind Power blows past Coal and Nuclear

    The Global Wind Energy Council reported a record boom in the wind energy markets across 70 countries for 2006. Despite formidable political barriers, wind power has earned its place as a mainstream energy source.

    Geographically Australia is 15 times the size of Spain, with only half of Spain’s population. With around one thirtieth of Spain’s population density, Australia has a phenomenal capacity for wind generation that remains untapped.

    Beyond Zero Emission’s Renewable Stationary Energy proposal shows that Victoria can generate 12,000MW of wind power using only 1% of its land area. This estimate is based on already available commercial technologies, as well as requiring robust policy frameworks and political commitment.

    Beyond Zero Emissions have marked out Victoria’s opportunity to move its energy supplies to near-100% wind power, boosted by gas and hydro in peak periods. Gas and hydro boosts would eventually be replaced by solar
    thermal technologies, resulting in 100% of Victoria’s energysourced entirely from renewables.

    "Developments worldwide show that the global wind energy industry is clearly competitive in big energy markets, achieving sustained growth despite being denied excessive subsidies that fossil-fuel industries and other non-renewables enjoy" said Matthew Wright, author of BZE’s Renewable Stationary Energy scoping document.

    Spain aspires to be sourcing 30% of its electricity from renewables by 2010, half of this to be supplied by wind power. At the sub-national level autonomous regions including Navarra have aimed to source 100% of their energy requirements from renewables by 2010.

    With the introduction of state based renewable energy targets, Australia’s political climate is just right for planning a national
    energy transition to 100% renewables.

    Wind power’s established role as one of Europe’s mainstream energy sources has yet to resonate in Australia. Now that Spain has demonstrated the success of wind power to supply a significant proportion of its required energy, Australia’s wind power production should now take off with the support of matured wind generation technologies and sophisticated turbine models.

  • Tasmania calls for emissions trading

    Basslink sale indicated:: National Grid International had indicated that it wants to sell the Victoria-Tasmania interconnector Basslink.

    Careful response: Asked if Tasmania Hydro "put in an indicative bid in regard to that, or has the Government put in an indicative bid under any other auspice?" Llewellyn, weighed his words and replied: "This is a commercial issue that is happening right at the moment with National Grid wanting to sell, and these are sensitive issues, I have to say.

    Hydro has to be careful: "You would not expect the Hydro to foreshadow its situation in great detail that then could be picked up by other competitors, or National Grid itself, and so on".

    Committee chair agrees: Committee chair, Dr David Crean, agreed: " … That is exactly right. What is a matter of public record is that National Grid have made that decision, it is their decision," he said.

    Reference: Parliament of Tasmania, House of Assembly, Government Businesses Scrutiny Committee meeting, Tuesday 6 March 2007. This document is available at http://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/hansard

    Erisk Net, 16/3/2007

  • Orange peel offers energy source

    The citrus waste, a pectin, cellulose and soluble sugar rich mixture of peel, segment membranes and seeds is available at no cost and in large volumes with potentially no transportation costs since companies like Florida-based Citrus Energy LLC, and newly incorporated Southeast Biofuels, plan to build biorefineries in the local vicinity or co-locate at the citrus processing facility itself.

    "I think what you’re going to see over the next fifteen years is wood plants in Georgia and Alabama; citrus plants in Florida; and corn plants in the Midwest," said Tom Endres, senior vice-president of operations at Xethanol Corporation.

    Xethanol, which formed a joint venture with Renewable Spirits last year to create Southeast Biofuels, plans to build a pilot plant this year with the potential to produce up to 50,000 gallons of ethanol from the citrus waste.

    "We’re optimistic that we’re going to build a pilot plant and we’re hopeful that the results and analysis are going to be economically viable to scale it up to a commercial operation," said Endres, adding that construction on the pilot plant will begin in the second or third quarter of this year.

    Citrus Energy LLC, which plans to build a four million gallon per year ethanol biorefinery in Florida, notes the citrus waste to ethanol technology is able to take advantage of a feedstock where the primary costs of growing, harvesting and collection are supported by the existing product stream.

    "Companies don’t have to buy the citrus waste," said Widmer. "Corn is over four dollars a bushel. Two years ago it was about two dollars a bushel. Corn costs are going up."

    Currently, citrus waste from orange juice processing companies is dried into citrus pulp pellets and fed to cattle with little or no return on investment. In addition, during the drying process toxins are released requiring citrus processing companies to install costly equipment to ensure that organic emissions do not escape into the atmosphere.

    However, those emissions are negated in the citrus-to-ethanol conversion process since no drying takes place, and the by-products, such as limonene (a valuable ingredients in commercial cleaning products) can be marketed at an additional profit. Approximately half a pound of peel oil is produced for every gallon of ethanol produced, said Widmer.

    "Where the process stands right now is we can break apart the complex carbohydrates and liquefy the citrus waste. Basically what we end up with is a four to five percent fermented stream — or citrus beer. I use that term ‘beer’ loosely. You definitely would not want to drink that stuff," said Widmer.

    Fermentation of the sugars is done using traditional brewers yeast and the resulting ‘beer’ has the ethanol separated and converted to fuel grade ethanol using a distillation and dehydration process. However, Widmer notes there are still minor hurdles left to overcome in the laboratory with the citrus to ethanol conversion process.

    "After stripping the alcohol we still end up with a residue that we need to get rid of — about one-third of the solid is still there and the short term solution right now is to dry that, and produce cattle feed from it," said Widmer.

    But with more research, material from the residue left after limonene removal and ethanol production could be turned into other profitable industrial products, such as building-material additives for concrete, said Widmer.

    "Will they be producing at a profit by next processing season? I don’t know," said Widmer, commenting on the likelihood of the technology being economically viable for companies in the next one to three years.

    "We haven’t demonstrated everything from a raw peel to two-hundred proof alcohol — and stripping that ethanol out of the beer stream — I don’t think it’s a major hurdle, I think it’s a minor one. But it’s one that we do have to demonstrate."

    For Further Information

  • Gunns Deserts Tas Govt

    Gunns CEO John Gay attacked Sate Government, pulling out of the $1.45billion deal and saying it "stuffed me up"

  • User pays for Queensland Water

    Who has to pay: The following retailers and power stations were to be be declared as Grid Customers and, as beneficiaries, be subject to cost recovery arrangements commencing as of 1 July 2008:

    Councils: Beaudesert Shire Council; Boonah Shire Council; Brisbane City Council; Caboolture Shire Council; Council of the Shire of Esk; Gatton Shire Council; Gold Coast City Council; Ipswich City Council; Kilcoy Shire Council; Laidley Shire Council; Logan City Council; Pine Rivers Shire Council; Redcliffe City Council;

    Power stations;: CS Energy (Swanbank Power Station) Tarong Energy (Tarong Power Station and Tarong North Power Station).

    Users must pay: The plan was the following entities be declared as Grid Customers and, as beneficiaries, be subject to cost recovery arrangements commencing as of 1 July 2009: Redland Shire Council, Noosa Shire Council, Maroochy Shire Council and Caloundra City Council.

    Toowoomba a possible: Assessment as to whether Toowoomba is a beneficiary of the Water Grid will be dependent on whether a pipeline interconnection to Wivenhoe Dam is to be established.
    ).The fundamental scope of the Water Grid will be defined in terms of both:

    • the Grid Assets required to be managed in a coordinated manner by the Grid Manager; and

    • the Grid Customers, being those communities to which the Water Grid provides services at specified off-take points or ‘demand nodes’.

    The beneficiaries of the Water Grid are those customers within the South East Queensland (SEQ) Region that benefit from security of supply. These beneficiaries will be declared as Grid Customers and will be required, in aggregate, to pay for the supply of those services;. The Water Grid provides security of supply through a commitment to supply water in accordance with defined Level of Service Objectives which address hydrologic risk. The Water Grid may also improve GridCustomers’ ability to mitigate risks such as localised asset failure (for example treatment plant failure) and source risks (for example a contamination event in a dam); and the economic and social well-being of SEQ’s individual communities are inherently interdependent and an improvement to water supply security in one community provides benefits to the entire SEQ Region.

    Reference: Queensland Water Commission, Institutional Arrangements for Urban Water Supply Arrangements in South East Queensland, Draft Report for Consultation, February 2007, website: http://www.qwc.qld.gov.au
    Contact: Chief Executive Officer, Queensland Water Commission, PO Box 15087, City East QLD Australia 4002, ph: (07) 3227 8207, fax: (07) 3033 0887, email: qwcenquiries@qwc.qld.gov.au Closing date for submissions: Thursday 5 April 2007.

  • Water shortages shut power station

    Now another 45pc reduction: It will now reduce generation by another 45 per cent of full load, with two of the four 350 megawatt generators being suspended. One unit will remain on standby and can return to service on 36 hours’ notice. "This will mean an overall reduction of 70 pet cent from full load," Gluer said.

    No job losses: “There will be no Tarong Energy job losses as a result of the reduced generation and there will be no impact on the major outage schedules.” The reduction at Tarong will save about 22,000 megalitres of water over 15 months.

    The Australian Financial Review, 15/3/2007, p.9