Energy, Transportation & Missouri News

ENERGY

Buyer of TVA Nuclear Plant Plans to Run It

We previously posted that the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was auctioning an unfinished nuclear power plant near Hollywood, Alabama. The buyer, Nuclear Development LLC, announced its intention to complete the plant and put it into operation.

Before this can be done, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must transfer the operating license from TVA to Nuclear Development. In addition, Nuclear Development must complete financing arrangements.

Nuclear Development bid $111 million for the plant. In addition to two nuclear reactors and supporting facilities, the property includes 1,600 acres of land.

Canada, Finland Plan to Phase Out Coal

Canadian officials announced plans to phase out coal-powered electric generation by 2030. They hope the country will be 90 percent powered by sustainable sources by that time.

Findland also proposes to phase out coal by 2030. The country plans to be carbon-neutral by 2050.

MISSOURI

Bill Would Make Sale of Municipal Utilities Easier

A bill filed in the Missouri General Assembly (HB 247), would lower the threshold of voter approval needed for a municipality to sell a utility. If passed, it would lower the requirement from a five-seventh majority to a simple majority. The Missouri House Local Government Committee has taken up the bill.

TRANSPORTATION

Bill Would Transfer Some Missouri Roads from State to Counties

Two bills in the Missouri Senate (SB 38 and SJR 3), propose pathway for the transfer of responsibility for certain road, letter routes, from the state to counties. About two-thirds of the current state funds for maintaining these roads will be distributed to counties, the remainder remaining with the state for other transportation needs.

County officials are opposed to the measure, saying it will shift much of the state’s burden for road maintenance to even more cash-strapped counties. These routes were maintained by counties until 1952, when the state took them over as part of a road improvement program.

A similar proposal failed to pass in the 2016 session. SJR 3 also includes a provision for raising fuel taxes. You can find out more about these bills here.

Noisy Electric Cars

New rules will require electric cars traveling slower than 19 miles per hour to produce a sound. This is to prevent accidents involving pedestrians who can’t hear the very quiet electric motors operating in these vehicles. The National Transportation Safety Administration anticipates this measure will prevent 2,400 injuries to pedestrians annually. New electric and hybrid cars must comply with the rule by September 2019.

Water News

More than Half of World Population Experiences Water Scarcity

Researchers at the University of Twente (reported in the Washington Post) have published a study indication that 4 billion people, more than half of the world population, experiences severe water shortages at least one month out of the year. Half a billion people experience year-round severe water shortages. Agriculture is the primary use of water. You can find a copy of the study here.

Water-Food Nexus: Better Water Management Could Lead to More Food Production

There is potential for existing agricultural lands, along with current rainwater and irrigation resources, to produce more food, potentially halving the food gap by 2050. The greatest potential is in dry areas such as the western U.S., Mexico, Australia, South Africa and China. Developing the potential of these areas depends on careful cropland water management. You can find more here.

Energy & Water Update

ENERGY

Illinois Approves Power Line Rejected in Missouri

We previously posted that the Missouri Public Service Commission rejected a power line project called the Grain Belt Express, which would connect wind energy generation in Kansas to users in Indiana. The Illinois Commerce Commission has approved the project, making Missouri the only holdout.  Clean Line Energy, the company behind the project, plans to continue to seek approval either by reapplying to the state or seeking an overriding federal approval.

Texas Utility Offer Free Nighttime Electricity

TXU energy has offered customers free energy at night. This unusual offer is an attempt to shift use from daytime, when wholesale energy costs are high, to night, when prices drop.

Texas may be better able to adopt a program like this. It has more wind resources than other parts of the country, accounting for 10 percent of generation, and wind blows more at night. In addition, the Texas grid operates largely independently from the other grids in the country, so it cannot easily sell and deliver excess generation to the larger wholesale market.

You can find out more about this free electricity program here.

WATER

Cardboard Sewers Collapse in Canada

In the building boom after World War II, many Canadian sewer service lines were built of a tar-impregnated cardboard. These pipes have been failing with increasing frequency. Some Canadian cities are facing replacement costs of hundreds of millions of dollars.

It appears that these pipes stood up well until dishwasher became common and the hot water began to soften them. This is an interesting illustration of how we are putting new demands on our infrastructure that could hardly have been imagined decades ago when it was originally built.

You can read more about this issue here.

Infrastructure & Environment News

Energy

Alternative Energy Links

My lack of time to write for this blog has reduced me to a compiler of infrastructure news, though such compilation has always been part of Infrastructure Watch. You can links to several alternative energy articles here.

Google Pledges Investment in African Renewables Project

Google pledged to invest in the Lake Turkana Wind Power Project in Kenya. You can find more about this project here.

Low Gas Prices No Problem for Solar

Low gas prices didn’t last long around here (at least they didn’t stay less than $2 per gallon for long). Either way, Tony Randall discusses why low oil prices are not a problem for the continued growth of solar power in Bloomberg.

Renewables Generators Face Distribution Problems

As the U.S. develops renewable energy resources, it is facing a problem: the places where we most want to use the energy are some distance from the places where we are best able to generate it.  States in the middle of the country are becoming involved in conflicts between clean energy proponents and landowners, sometimes turning environmental and energy groups into uncomfortable allies.

Missouri is one state where the issue has come to head. Earlier this year, the Public Service Commission rejected a project that would carry energy from wind farms in Kansas to users in Indiana. The commission determined that the project was not needed, and many of the public comments received by the commission expressed opposition to the project. The company behind the proposal, Clean Line Energy Partners LLC of Texas, is also proposing a line to connect Oklahoma to Tennessee, which faces opposition in Arkansas.

Environmental groups have been supportive of the Missouri project. Missouri’s chapter of the Sierra Club has acknowledged that the Clean Line route avoids many environmentally sensitive areas, and expressed hope that it will help in the move away from coal. The Sierra Club also supported a Clean Line project in part of Arkansas where it was opposing an oil pipeline project.

Supreme Court Hears Demand Response Case

The Supreme Court has been hearing arguments in a case related to demand response. Demand response refers to methods large energy user adjust their use to reduced demand during normally high use times when energy is expensive. Demand response reduces peak demand, evens out energy use, and reduces cost of energy production.

Companies have created markets to trade these reductions in demand (sometimes called negawatts) as if they were power being supplied to the market. When major users reduce shift use or move use to off-peak times, they reduce the need to ramp up additional generating units, and save money for generators. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has enshrined this in regulations that require energy wholesalers to pay for these commitments to reduce demand the same amount they pay for a commitment to generate electricity.

The crux of the argument before the court is the regulatory authority of FERC. FERC has authority related to wholesale energy markets, where commitments to generate might be traded (and FERC rules say a commitment to reduce demand should get an equal price). The utility customers who are making the commitments to reduce demand are buying energy in the retail market, which is regulated by states.  Opponents of the FERC rules say that it is getting into retail markets in which it has not authority. FERC argues that it is the only agency that can effective regulate this kind of trading, and that there is a public good in the demand reductions and efficiencies provided by demand response.

You can find more about this case here, along with a description of how it may become important to small retail electricity users (i.e. almost all of us).

Infrastructure

John Oliver Thinks Infrastructure Sexy

Comedian John Oliver featured America’s infrastructure in a segment on his show Last Week Tonight. Obviously, Oliver’s tone is humorous and mocking, but he presents a thoughtful essay on the issue. You can see it on YouTube.

States

New Environmental Director in Nebraska

Congratulations to Jim Macy, who was recently appointed by Gov. Pete Ricketts to serve as director of the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality. Macy has worked in the area of environmental regulation and compliance for decades, including leadership roles at the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

Transportation

States Take Lead on Infrastructure Funding

Washington senate leaders have proposed to raise the state gas tax to 11.7 cents per gallon over the next three years. The proposal would also redirect a portion of the state’s sales tax to its transportation fund (more here).

Oregon will experiment with a program of fees based on miles driven rather than a gas tax beginning this summer (more here). Many think this is a more rational way to fund highways.

In my home state of the Missouri, the governor came just short of calling for a gas tax hike as part of the state of the state address. Tax Justice Blog has a nice summary of proposals in several other states.

Water

Baltimore Sewers Featured on Radio

The radio program Marketplace featured the Baltimore, MD, sewer system and the issues associated with a large, aging infrastructure (listen to or read the story here). Baltimore is not unique; these problems are plaguing cities across the nation.

San Francisco Opens New Hetch Hetchy Tunnel

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission opened the New Irvington Tunnel. The 3.5-mile, 9-ft diameter tunnel will carry 265 million gallons a day. It is part of the Hetch Hetchy system, which brings water from reservoirs as far away as Yosemite National Park, 167 miles. (Read more about the project at KQED.)

Real-Time Sensor for Bacteria in Water

A device has been developed in Denmark that can detect bacteria in water. Of course, not all bacteria is harmful, so it seems the usefulness of the tool may be limited to screening for now. However, it continuous, real-time monitoring could be a useful screen to determine when additional testing is should be performed or when a contamination event started. If commercial versions of the sensor are affordable, multiple sensors could be placed in a drinking water distribution system to continuously monitor water quality, disinfection effectiveness, and potential contamination.  You can find out more about the sensor here.

Water and Art

Adres Jacque will build a temporary structure that uses plants to purify water in the courtyard of MoMA PS1. Organisms in the structure will glow in the dark to provide light. See this Fast Company article for more information.

Giant Sucking Sound

That giant sucking sound is the United States drinking, eating and burning Canada’s water. A 2011 report by The Council of Canadians, Leaky Exports: A Portrait of Virtual Water Trade in Canada, identifies the United States as the primary importer of virtual water from Canada.  That virtual water is traded primarily in the forms of agricultural goods, minerals, and energy resources.

Canada is the second highest gross exporter of virtual water (behind the United States), and the second highest net exporter of virtual water (behind Australia). Understandably, Canadian policy makers are concerned about preserving their water resources, especially when interests in their thirsty neighbor to the south have proposed exporting Canadian water (not virtual water, actual water).

Related posts and articles

Book Review: The Big Thirst by Charles Fishman

Book Review: Blue Revolution by Cynthia Barnett

Book Review: Water by Marq de Villiers

Book Review: Water by Steven Solomon

Virtual Water

Okay, this is a bit dated. I'm catching up on a lot of reading and I have had little time to write for this blog. I appreciate the readers who still follow Infrastructure Watch. I'm looking into ways I can make this an interesting and useful blog with the time constraints I have.

Cool Stuff, Old and New

London Underground Turns 150

The first train traveled the London Underground 150 years ago last month. It has grown to 249 miles of track that carry 3 million passengers daily. The Institute of Civil Engineers is observing the anniversary with events throughout the year.

Moon Water

When I was in high school, I enjoyed The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein. The title inspired my friends to tease me by saying it with dramatic flair. We all read science fiction, but I tended to read more hard sci-fi and older books (The Moon is a Harsh Mistress was 20 years old back then).

Anyway, in this book Heinlein anticipated that there would be water on the moon in the form of underground ice, which would be mined by settlers. Recent studies suggest that there is water ice on the moon, though we are obviously a long way from using it to quench the thirst of moon settlers. By the way, Heinlein also anticipated the Internet in this book, which I read when home dial-up Internet service was a relatively new thing and few people had computers in their homes.

Water Scarcity

Water scarcity is a growing issue worldwide.  There is a lot of water in the world, but issues of location, timing, quantity, quality, and use can lead to serious problems.  Here are links to some recent articles that highlight the issue.

As Drought Intensifies, 2 States Dig In Over Water War (Gerlock, G., NPR, Feb. 6, 2013)

Water Levels Hit Record Lows in Two Great Lakes, Wildlife Struggles to Cope with Changing Climate (Yeager-Kozacek, C., Circle of Blue, Feb. 8, 2013)

Worse Than Poisoned Water: Dwindling Water, in China’s North (Tatlow, D. K., International Herald Tribune Rendezvous blog, Feb. 5, 2013)

China Leads in Investing in Watersheds to Protect Drinking Water (Howard, B. C., National Geographic Water Currents, Jan. 18, 2013)

China’s Water Pollution Crisis (Economy, E. C., Diplomat, Jan. 22, 2013)

Davos 2013: water scarcity is “second most important world risk” (Confino, J., Guardian, Jan. 24, 2013)

Toxic Water: Across Much of China, Huge Harvests Irrigated with Industrial and Agricultural Runoff (Ivanova, N., Circle of Blue, Jan. 19, 2013)

Water agencies call for alternative to the $14B Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta tunnels (Wozniack, G., Bakersfield Now [Associated Press], Jan. 28, 2013)

World Water Scarcity (Infrastructure Watch, Jan. 9, 2013)

Cost of Increasing Droughts (Growing Blue)

Book Review: The Big Thirst by Charles Fishman

More than 1 billion people do not have access to clean drinking water.  Australia has suffered a decade-long, continent-wide drought.  Even seemingly water rich places, like Atlanta, Georgia, can’t get enough water.  Many are talking of a global water crisis.  Except, as Charles Fishman aptly states it in The Big Thirst, “There is no global water crisis, there are a thousand water crises, each distinct.”

I think the story of Atlanta and Lake Lanier, as told recounted by Fishman, is especially instructive.  Lake Lanier on the Chatahoochee River is the source of 75 percent of the water used by Atlanta, 5 million gallons a day.  A drought in 2007-2008 brought the level of the lake dangerously low, prompting downstream states to sue over the amount of water Atlanta was taking.  The federal court declared that Atlanta had been illegally receiving water from the lake and had to find another source.  Atlanta has a lot of resources, barely tapped conservation efforts, reuse, and alternative supplies, but with a lack of political will, leadership, and vision, it leaders threw up their hands in impotent defiance of the court and whined they must have Lake Lanier water.  When the lake was built, Atlanta passed on paying for a piece of it thinking it would never be needed, and now they think they can’t live without it.

Part of the point Fishman makes it that water crises are more often than not political crises.  There is a lack of political will and sense of necessity, even though the problems can be plain and the solutions within reach.  The Big Thirst includes examples from around the world (the United States, India, and especially Australia) where people are facing water problems.  Happily, many of them have taken a more realistic and reasonable approach than Atlanta.

Fishman is going for something deeper, though.  Our political and economic stumbling in the area of water management stems for our cultural relationship with water.  It is obviously necessary for life.  We also consider it beautiful, it is part of our landscape, and in some places it has important religious significance.  Even so, we have difficulty understanding the value of water, comparing one use to another, assigning responsibility for its distribution and quality, acknowledging the infrastructure needed to have water when and where it is needed.  It the West, where for the last century we have enjoyed incredible access to abundant water, we hardly ever think about water unless we have some professional connection to it.

We can’t continue to be mindless of water.  The systems of water abundance we built in the last century aren’t sustainable without major ongoing investment.  In light of climate change, they may be altogether unsustainable.  Even without climate change, much of our water policy dates to a time of unusual water abundance.

Fishman encourages water mindfulness.  We need to reconnect to water.  In part, this reconnecting means understanding what it means to have water in our homes and in our streams.  It is also connecting to how critical water is to food, energy, commerce, health, and almost every aspect of life.  Our decisions about water need to be rooted in reality.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Blue Revolution by Cynthia Barnett

Elixir by Brian Fagan

Water by Marq de Villiers

Water by Steven Solomon

When the Rivers Run Dry by Fred Pearce

I’ve also written about Atlanta and Lake Lanier at Infrastructure Watch:

Courts Could Affect Uses of Lake Lanier

Georgia Appeals Lake Lanier Decision

Georgia Loses Lake Lanier Battle

Judge Winnows Down Central Question in Lake Lanier Case

Fishman, Charles.  The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water.  New York: Free Press, 2011.

This review of The Big Thirst by Charles Fishman appears courtesy of Keenan’s Book Reviews, were you can find more books about water.

Going Subterranean in Paris

Writing for Intelligent Life, Will Hunt describes a trip from one side of Paris to the other that was almost entirely underground in his article, “Going Souterrain.”  Modern cities have huge underground infrastructure, and some are large enough to permit men to travel through, though this is dangerous and almost uniformly illegal.  In a city as that also ancient, like Paris which has areas that were populated back in Roman times, that goes double.

There are two things in Hunt’s article that I find particularly interesting.  First, underground portions of Paris are tourist attractions and have been for a long time.  I would be such a tourist, but I realize I’m in a minority.  Second, Paris has as subculture of cataphiles, people who enjoy spending time in the catacombs and other underground structures of that city.  They hang out in popular places, party, and sometime explore.

I do not advocate that unprepared amateurs should trespass on private property or enter underground utility tunnels or sewers.  As I mentioned, it is dangerous.  I do recommend reading “Going Soutterain."

It’s World Toilet Day @WorldToiletDay #IGiveAShit #Toilet Day

Today is World Toilet Day.  I could write a lot about sanitation and the importance of safe waste disposal and clean water.  Instead, I’m going to punk out and post a bunch of links.

@WorldToiletDay on Twitter

More People Own A Cell Phone Than Toilet, Other Facts To Know (Huffington Post, Nov. 19, 2012)

Ode to the Commode (Clorox on Facebook)

Take action for World Toilet Day on Monday 19 November (Water Aid UK)

Talk Sh*t for Toilet Day

Thinking Outside the Stall on World Toilet Day (Thalif, D., IPS, Nov. 15, 2012)

Time to Talk Toilets: World Toilet Day (Lindenmayer, M., Forbes, Nov. 15, 2012)

World Toilet Day 2012: Crappy holiday shines spotlight on serious issue (Examiner, Nov. 17, 2012)

World Toilet Day November 19^th (White, G., Huffington Post, Nov. 15, 2012)

World Toilet Day: November 19, 2012 (Water Aid US)

WorldToiletDay.org

WorldToilet.org

If you want to promote World Toilet Day, tweet with the hashtag #IGiveAShit or #ToiletDay and point people to @WorldToiletDay.

Book Review: Blue Revolution by Cynthia Barnett

Barnett, Cynthia.  Blue Revolution: Unmaking America’s Water Crisis.  Boston: Beacon Press, 2011.

America has a problem.  We’re a thirsty nation.  Actually, it’s more like we’re addicted to water, abusing it.  We subsidize its use on a grand scale in industries that use it inefficiently, even wastefully, and in locations where it is naturally hard to come by.  We allocate it based on facts that are no longer true, and were doubtful or changing even as we made our policies.  In our sometimes blind enthusiasm, we overreached and now we are mire in unintended consequences.  To top it off, we rarely change our ways until a crisis is already upon us.

Cynthia Barnett describes these problems in her book Blue Revolution.  She also looks around the country and the world for solutions.  Her essential solution is a water ethic.

Atnone time, people were intimately connected to water.  Farmers watched for rain.  Children fetched pails of it from the stream or worked a pump handle.  Communities were built around watermills where people brought in grain or carried away flour. 

Of course, water is no less essential to modern life.  We depend on it for drinking, cleaning, sanitation and green lawns.  It is essential or the energy that light and cools our homes and powers our computers.  The abundance of food in our groceries stores is partly a testament to the abundance of water used to irrigate fields that don’t get enough rainfall for the crops we grow.

What is different is the way we view water.  For most of us it is cheap, nearly free in comparison to other utilities and services we use in our homes.   We can get as much as we want whenever we want by opening a valve.  Water is something we hold back with dams, divert with canals, and pump through pipes.  It bends to our will—except when it doesn’t.

Our water policies and technologies have often had unintended consequences.  We turned deserts into productive fields, but much of the water is lost to evaporation.  We moved water great distances to supply cities, but it encouraged profligacy that threatens those distant, expensive supplies.  Dams that were engineering marvels may soon stand at the ends of empty lakes.

Sure, changes in technology and policy are needed to stop, and hopefully reverse, these problems.  Barnett doesn’t stop there.  Our approach to water arises from the way we value it, think about it, and relate to it.  Our present state came from valuing water little, thinking about it little unless it was our job, and relating to it little except for those who intensely depended on a highly subsidized supply.

The water ethic Barnett proposes would value water, both in the sense of personal appreciation and economic cost and opportunity.  It would seek the best use of the water we have, especially what is locally available.  It creates opportunities for people to contact water and understand where it comes from and how it is affected by use.  It is something that spreads organically from person to person, neighborhood to neighborhood, business to business, and city to city.

It is an ethic that is within reach, too.  Barnett describes how places that have long had extreme relationships with extreme water environments, like the Netherlands, Singapore and Australia, have changed their relationship with water.  These are not just policy shifts, they are cultural changes.  Even in the United States, there are places where a new water ethic is taking hold and people understand how important and fragile water is.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Elixir by Brian Fagan

Water by Marq de Villiers

Water by Steven Solomon

When the Rivers Run Dry by Fred Pearce

This review of Blue Revolution by Cynthia Barnett appears courtesy of Keenan’s Book Reviews, where you can find review of other books on water and ethics.

Missouri, Manitoba Force Bureau of Reclamation to Take “Hard Look” at Project

Missouri and the Canadian province of Manitoba sued to prevent the transfer of water from Lake Sakakawea of the Missouri River to Minot, ND. They claim that this interbasin transfer would introduce alien species to the waterways effected by the project.

This is the second time Judge Rosemary Collyer (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia) has ordered the Bureau of Reclamation to take a “hard look” at the project and its environmental effects. Collyer found that the Bureau’s environmental review was too narrow, considering only the anticipated change in lake levels as a result of the transfer.

Portions of the pipeline that is part of the Northwest Area Water Supply Project have already been constructed. The project ran into trouble in 2002 when Manitoba first filed suit.

Relate posts and articles:
Missouri Comes Out Swingin Over River Divserion Plan
Judge Orders Interior to Re-examine Water Pipeline Plan

Bill Would Limit Greenhouse Gas Considerations in Endangered Species Decisions

Sen. John Barrasso (Wyo.) has introduced a bill (S. 724) modifying the Endangered Species Act. The bill would prohibit the Secretary of Interior from considering global climate change as a natural or manmade factor affection decisions about whether species are endangered or threatened until the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency confirms that all major emitters of greenhouse gases have signed an international agreement to limit carbon emissions. Major emitters of greenhouse gases includes China, India and the United States.

G8 Commits to 50% Reduction in Greenhouse Gases by 2050

The recent G8 summit resulted in resolutions related to several subjects, including climate change. The resolutions adopted at the summit are not binding treaties, but they do indicate the shared assumptions and framework which may become the basis for more formal global climate policy.

Additional information:
G8 Declaration on Environment and Climate Change
G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit
G8 Leaders Commit to 50% Cut in Greenhouse Gases by 2050