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Press Coverage October 10, 2003 Alameda Journal
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City looks at trash as energy source By Susan
Fuller Electric generation on the Island is the way to prevent blackouts, such as occurred in California in the summer of 2000 and last Aug. 14 on the East Coast, Alameda Power & Telecom officials say. An old, failure-prone transmission system, not a shortage of electricity, was the culprit, they say. By generating locally, AP&T can shortcut the regional transmission network and keep the juice flowing. Experts on clean energy spoke during a panel discussion Wednesday hosted by Alameda Power & Telecom. They talked about geothermal-, wind- and garbage- fueled generation. Garbage The conversion of garbage, to gasses to fuel generators is a new use for an old technology. The process is called gassification. Prototypes are running in Australia, Europe and Japan. Using garbage -- known as municipal solid waste in the industry -- reduces the quantity of garbage in landfills and decreases dependence on natural gas, along with the drilling and transportation it requires. The process works like this: Waste is separated to remove materials that do not produce energy, such as glass. That resulting material is heated to 2,000 degrees or more, with little or no oxygen. Without oxygen, the hydrocarbon molecules are reduced to simpler materials: carbon monoxide, hydrogen and methane -- fuels used in generators instead of natural gas. Gassification without oxygen is much cleaner than incineration, in which there is a lot of oxygen, Maclay said. Gassification meets today's air standards, he said. The disadvantage of using garbage as fuel is emissions, Maclay said. Both the nature of emissions and the economies of such a system need to be verified, he said. "Because it's a new application, there's less certainty about how well it will operate," he said. The mixture of fuels, which will vary over time, makes consistent operations more difficult, he said. But there are people who doubt the safety of gassification. Several members of Green Action were on attack. Green Actions is the San Francisco advocacy group which was active in the shutdown of a medical waste incinerator just across the High Street Bridge. "You failed to mention hazardous emissions such as dioxin and mercury," said Bradley Angel of Green Actions to Dick Maclay, a consultant hired by AP&T to research garbage-fueled generation. Angel and his cohorts accused the city and Maclay of promoting a dangerous technology and specific (but unnamed) companies. "Our purpose is not to promote any technology," said Ann McCormick, a member of the Public Utilities Board. Geothermal Alameda gets half its electricity from the Geysers, a geothermal plant 25 miles south of Clear Lake. Plant manager Murray Grande explained geothermal energy. The Northern California Power Agency, which Alameda belongs to, has two generators at the Geysers. Steam, which drives the turbines at a geothermal plant, comes from water super-heated by molten magma 25 to 30 miles below the earth's surface. Before becoming a generator, the geysers were used as a spa, visited by the likes of Teddy Roosevelt, Ulysses Grant, Jack London and Luther Burbank. The first generator was installed there in 1931. The early plants didn't last long because corrosive gasses destroyed their piping. Geothermal plant construction grew rapidly in the late 1970s, a consequence of the oil embargo, high gas prices and a general interest in renewable energy. Because too many plants were built, pressure at the Geysers began to decline in the late 1980s. To hold off the end of geothermal generation, operators now inject water back into the system. Wind Wind generation is inexpensive and emission-free, and a new system can be up and running in three to six months. The downside is that wind is an intermittent and unpredictable resource, not necessarily available when electricity is needed. Steve Ponder talked about the wind turbines placed by his company, FPL energy, the largest developer of wind energy in the country. New wind turbines are five to six times more efficient and economical than the old wind farms on Altamont Pass, he said. The cost of a wind farm depends on how windy the site is, the price of turbines, size and terrain of the project and its distance to transmission lines. FPL just completed a wind farm near Rio Vista. "Some people don't like the visual impact of windmills," Poder said, but most like looking at them. The turbines can't be heard from inside a house, he said. Wind turbines have been criticized for killing birds. "Unfortunately, Altamont is in a migratory bird path," Poder said. "With the bigger turbines, I think birds will see them. We don't site plants where there are migratory birds." The NCPA is considering a wind farm, but the technology is unlikely to work in Alameda. Wind speed at Alameda Point is around 10 miles per hour. The turbines begin to work at eight or nine miles per hour and are most efficient at 28 to 32 miles per hour.
Copyright 2003 Knight Ridder |
