Energy & Transportation News

ENERGY

Missouri Municipal Electric Utilities, Governor Support Power Line Project

Earlier this year, the Missouri Public Service Commission (PSC) rejected a proposal for a power line that would carry electricity generated at wind farms in Kansas to the grid in Indiana. The PSC’s decision was based, in part, on the fact that no Missouri customers would use the line or the energy it carried.

Clean Line Energy, which proposed the project, has been looking to overcome this object. It has brokered a deal with the Missouri Joint Municipal Electric Utility Commission (MJMEUC), which represents a pool of municipal utilities that pool resources to by power. MJMEUC has 67 municipal utility member and 35 are expected to take part in the deal if it is approved.

In addition, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has expressed his support for the transmission line. In his statement, Nixon emphasized the energy savings and jobs that would be created the $500 million construction project.

The line must be approved by the Missouri PSC. It is likely to be opposed by affected landowners who campaigned against the original proposal. Official in Kansas, Illinois and Indiana have already approved the project.

What Are the Advantages of Microgrids?

This is the second in a series of posts on microgrids. See the previous post for a description of what is a microgrid.

Microgrids have several potential benefits. These include

-backup energy supply and improved reliability,

-environmental benefits,

-exploitation of local and alterative resources,

-increased energy efficiency and reduced energy consumption, and

-reduced cost.

Backup Energy Supply and Improved Reliability

Because microgrids can operate independently of the larger grid, they may be able to continue to operate when there is an outage elsewhere on the main grid.

Environmental Benefits

Microgrids are not inherently less polluting than large grids, but they may afford opportunities to manage energy resources in manners that may reduce pollution. Microgrids may be more easily able to exploit variable or small renewable sources including solar and wind energy. These smaller power supplies may also be able to address local peaks and reduce the need to ramp up production at larger, and potentially more polluting, power plants.

Exploit Local and Alternative Resources

Sometimes local energy resources are available that are not suitable for use on a large grid because they are not sufficiently powerful or reliable. Solar energy, an alternative energy source that is variable and relative low power, is an example of a resource that may be more easily exploited by a microgrid.

Reduced Cost

Microgrids might be managed in a manner to reduce costs. For instance, when prices are high during periods of peak demand, a microgrid might switch to a local power supply that is less expensive. This will also reduce the peak on the larger grid, meaning larger power plants do not have to ramp up production as much or be built to address large peaks.

If you’re interested in finding out more about microgrids, here are some resources to get you started.

How microgrids work (Lantero, A., Energy.gov, June 17, 2014)

What is a microgrid? (Infrastructure Watch, April 23, 2016)

TRANSPORTATION

60 Years of Interstate Highways

President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 on June 29 of that year. Though previous legislation had authorized interstate highways, it was under this act and the Eisenhower administration that our interstate system began in earnest.

Interstates have proven to be a safe way to travel (the fatality rate on interstates is less the rate on other routes).

Even so, the roads are showing signs of aging. Many sections are in poor condition and many bridges are structurally deficient.

Keeping up with the maintenance needs of the interstate system is an enormous task. The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that the backlog if needed improvements totals $189 billion.

Relate Posts and Articles

At 60, U.S. Interstate Highway System is Showing Its Age (Hill, C., Equipment World, June 28, 2016)

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 (Weingroff, R. F., Federal Highway Administration, June 15, 2015)

Missouri Legislature Fails to Act on Transportation Tax

Though a bill passed in the Missouri Senate, the state’s General Assembly did not act on a proposed fuel tax increase before closing its session in May. You can read more about this issue here.

COMPLAINTS DEPARTMENT

Blogger Considers Career Change

That doesn’t mean I’ll quit blogging. I’ve never made a living (or even a dime) from blogging, and it has always taken a back seat to other things. By day, I’m an employee of a state that pays the lowest wages of any state (even our legislators are starting to complain about it). Maybe I should cross the river and go back to school where I can learn to be a brewmaster, or possibly a vintner. As I recall, looking through the fog of a couple of decades, I did reasonably well in my undergraduate food processing class, so maybe I can build on that.

In Congress

Balancing Act

The Balancing Act (H.R. 505) has been referred to several committees of the House of Representatives. The bill is intended to delay sequestrations, improve efficiency, reduce tax loopholes, and extend some programs. Some of the infrastructure related highlights of the bill include

-elimination of several tax breaks related to fossil fuels,

-immediate appropriations for air and surface transportation,

-create an infrastructure bank called the American Infrastructure Financing Authority,

-extending certain tax exemptions on bonds.

If Congress would like to put this blogger to work, it should end this ongoing threat of sequestration and agree on a budget.

Congressional Budget Office Releases 4Q2012 Recover Act Report

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report on the economic impact of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) for the last quarter of 2012. During that period, ARRA funded 113,000 full-time-equivalent jobs (FTEs), though this figure does not necessarily correlate to increased jobs in the economy. CBO estimates the economic impacts for the reporting quarter to be

-0.1 to 0.6 percent increase in gross domestic product (GDP),

-0.1 to 0.4 percentage point decrease in unemployment, and

-increased the number of people employed by between 0.1 million and 0.8 million.

Fix It First

President Barack Obama’s Fix-It-First proposal has received some fairly gentile criticism from House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Bill Shuster (PA). The plan would provide an additional appropriation of $50 million to transportation projects ($40 million to transportation programs and $10 million to capitalize an infrastructure bank). Rep. Shuster says the proposal fails to address the long-term issue of transportation funding. Current transportation funding sources bring in $35 billion annually, but Congress has approved spending of more than $50 billion annually. You can read more about this issue at The Hill.

What You Are Looking For

Infrastructure Watch is not above self-promotion, but we try to focus on the topics related to infrastructure and the environment.  Even so, we got a little curious about what draws readers this blog.  We checked out the top Google search terms that linked people to this blog.  They are:

Infrastructurist blog

We noted the farewell of The Infrastructurist, a blog that was more professional, better researched and better written that IW.

On Becoming a Leader by Warren Bennis

On this blog (and on Keenan’s Book Reviews), contributor Keenan Patterson posted a review of Warren Bennis’ classic leadership book that he wrote for a class back in 1997.  Judging from the popularity of this search, it is still assigned reading in many classes. 

Plagiarists beware, if you can find this review so easily, so can your professor.  If you just need to talk about the book as if you’ve read it, good luck.  You might also want to check out Keenan’s review of How to Talk about Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard.

Blogger

IW isn’t a prominent blog, but apparently referring to yourself as a blogger who makes no money from it (and linking to the complaint on your Google Plus page) is enough to get you in the top search results for the topic.  Now everyone will be doing it.

Recovery Act infrastructure criticism

IW hasn’t exactly been a critic of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 (ARRA), at least not when it comes to the infrastructure funding that was part of the supplementary appropriations bill.  An IW contributor spent a fair amount of time doing ARRA-funded work in 2011 (I think we just mention this blog has not made any money, though it would be nice if it did).  Even so, we’ve posted several things related to ARRA including a summary of reviews of the program’s performance.

Whatever your reason for visiting Infrastructure Watch, thank you.  We hope you find the posts and links here useful.  In addition, thanks to those who link to us on your blogs and social networking profiles.  We welcome comments, especially from other professionals in environmental and infrastructure design, planning, construction, management and policy.

Invest in Water Infrastructure: Put this Blogger to Work

As I’ve lamented before, blogging doesn’t pay the bills.  My work as an engineer and environmental consultant does.  I’m not strictly a disinterested party when it comes to encouraging investment in drinking water and wastewater infrastructure.

I think we can look at the response to the Recovery Act (ARRA) to see how ready we are to make this kind of investment.  The Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds received additional appropriations as part of ARRA.  They were tasked to commit the money in very short order and they did.  There aren’t a ton of “shovel ready” water projects because of the way they are planned and funded, but there is a great backlog of need.

In addition, interest rates for federal borrowing are very low.  I’m not a fan of huge government debt, when their borrowing to make ends meet.  It’s not something I recommend on an individual level, either.  However, when borrowing is done for the purpose of long-term investment an expected return of value, it makes sense.  Investing in water infrastructure will pay back in jobs, health, reliability, and in the simple loan repayments as local governments, and possibly even private utilities, pay back into the programs that provided the financing.

Related posts and articles

Nine reasons to invest more in the nation’s infrastructure

Want Jobs? Fix America's Water Crisis

Infrastructure Watch has a New URL

You can now reach Infrastructure Watch at www.infrastructurewatch.net. For now this will redirect you to the current Blogger site. We hope this will make it a little easier for you to reach IW and for us to provide more service to our readers in the future.