power plants - The Environment Report

Solar Houses Power Up the Grid

Some people are reversing the spin of their electric meters by selling their excess energy back to the power grid.

Most people think of houses as buildings that consume energy, but homeowners who generate their own electricity from rooftop solar panels are finding they often make more than they need. Some have begun selling their excess energy back to the utility… which puts it on the power grid for others to use. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Robbie Harris has this report:

To see your state’s policies regarding ‘net metering’ click here:

Transcript

Most people think of houses as buildings that consume energy. But home-owners who generate their own electricity from rooftop solar panels, are finding they often make more than they need. Some have begun selling their excess energy back to the utility… which puts it on the power grid for others to use. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Robbie Harris has this report:

(natural sound)

Marjie Isaacson’s one hundred twenty year old, brick four flat is wedged onto a typical Chicago city lot… From the street, the only thing that distinguishes her property from her neighbors, is the bright blue recycling bin, at the front gate… What you can’t see from the street is an array of twelve, 4 by 6 foot solar panels on the roof. A bank of batteries in the basement allows Isaacson to store enough electricity to power her house for four days.

“Here’s my messy basement.”

(laughs)

A huge wall full of batteries like this, used to be the only way to
store solar energy, but Marjie Isaacson
is taking part in an experimental
energy project.

“And how it works is.. When I’m producing energy from my solar panels it goes into the grid and gets mixed up with everyone else’s energy.. But Com Ed is keeping track of that for me.. And at the end of the year if I’ve used
more than I’ve given them, I don’t get any money. But if I’ve given them more than I use them, I get money.”

“And how’s that equation working?”

“I got money.”

“Can I ask how much?”

“Umm… I got 200 dollars.”

Com Ed, the Chicago utility company,
calls this its “Wind and Photovoltaic
Generation Pricing Experiment.” About
half the states in the country are experimenting
with something similar. Homeowners purchase
their own solar panels. Then the utility gives
them something called an inter-tie. The inter-tie
feeds their excess electricity to the power grid.
So the grid itself, effectively becomes the
home-owner’s battery back -up. On
cloudy days if someone’s system is
not generating enough power, the electrical
grid will supply it. When solar powered
houses produce an excess, Com Ed
will buy it from the homeowner. This
experiment has been going on for
three years. So far, fewer than 20
houses in Chicago have signed on to
the program.

“It’s a number that’s small that we’re
hoping to increase. It’s a hard sell in
the Midwest. Folks don’t think that
solar is as viable here as it is in
Florida or in California.”

Mary O’Toole is an Environmental
Strategist who oversees the alternative
energy experiment for Com Ed. She
gets a lot of phone calls from interested
homeowners… but when they hear it
costs anywhere from 10,000 dollars
on up to put a solar array on your roof,
that’s where the conversations end.

“I think most folks look at the cost of
solar or photovoltaic and say, “Oh!
I’ll wait for the price to drop.” Where
right now in Illinois we’ve got the ability
to cut the price in half for you… and
that’s… that’s huge.”

The state of Illinois has one of the
best incentive packages in the country
for offsetting the cost of installing
alternative energy systems. It offers
grants and rebates up to 60 percent.
But even with that price break, it still
takes 30 years or more for a solar energy
system to pay for itself. For most
homeowners, that’s way too long.
In this mobile society, it’s longer than
most people stay in their houses.

“We are in a society where nobody
cares for the future.”

Vladimir Nekola is an electrical
engineer who installs solar power
systems. He came to the U.S. twelve
years ago from Argentina. Nekola
longs for the day when he can tell
clients their payback will come in five
years. He points to other nations like
Japan and Germany which provide
homeowners with solar panels – and
allow them to pay off the high startup
costs over time. German utility
companies also encourage their
clients to participate in programs like
this by paying them far more than
Com Ed does for energy.

But the cost of conventional energy
is much higher in other countries
than it is in the US. Vladimir Nekola
says one of the things holding back
progress in alternative energy here
is that power is still relatively cheap.

“In my country, in Argentina,
everybody turns off the switch
because electricity is expensive. But here
it’s so cheap – we don’t care – we live
twenty four hours a day with the lights
on all the time… heating, air conditioner… it’s a luxury.”

Nekola believes most Americans
are just not thinking about alternative
energy. While he installed quite a few
solar energy systems around the
Y2K scare at the turn of the century…
he hasn’t done any in the last two
years. The few clients he is
working with are people who don’t
even have to think about price. To put
a solar array on your house, it seems,
you either have to be rich… crazy… or
fancy yourself an environmentalist.
Marjie Isaacson considers herself
the latter.

“I haven’t regretted it a day since I put
it in. It’s just been a source of
immense satisfaction to me.”

Marjie will tell you she was willing to
foot the bill for a solar power system –
the way other people might choose to
buy a new car – or some other
quasi-useful luxury.

“For me it was discretionary income.
I could have bought a fur coat.. but the
point is that if I had a fur coat or
fancy car no one would think I was
eccentric. But with this people seem
to think that it’s a little odd.”

In her dreams, Marjie envisions the
million solar rooftops former
President Bill Clinton spoke
about.. .. all generating energy
back to the grid.. and maybe, just
maybe, precluding the need for
another conventional energy power
plant.

Power industry officials say we’re
still a long way from that. But Marjie
Isaacson insists that it has to start
somewhere… and why not with her.

“People keep saying when we get
enough people getting these, the
solar panels are gonna start getting
cheaper.. so somebody has to start
buying them and I felt a responsibility
to put my money where my mouth
was.”

For the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium, I’m Robbie Harris.

Survey Finds Americans Dislike Bush Plan

A new poll indicates most Americans don’t like the Bush administration’s approach to global warming. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

A new poll indicates most Americans don’t like the Bush administration’s approach to global warming. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

The poll was commissioned by the Union of Concerned Scientists. It found that 75-percent of those polled disagreed with the President’s approach asking power plants and others to voluntarily reduce emissions such as carbon dioxide believed to cause global warming… and they rejected the Bush administration’s proposal that we simply
adapt to the changes global warming will cause. Alden Meyer is the Director of Government Relations for the Union of Concerned Scientists…

“This is true not only for three-quarters of the public as a whole, but for around two-thirds of those who voted for President Bush. So, as the leader of the Republican party he is greatly out of step with the rank and file base of his own party on the issue of global warming.”

The Union of Concerned Scientists says the Bush administration paid too close attention to energy industry officials and ignored the public when putting together its energy plan.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Tough Emissions Controls to Help Forest?

Environmentalists say upstate New York’s six million acre Adirondack Park is suffering the most damage from acid rain in the country. To help control that, the state could soon pass the toughest power plant emission regulations in the U.S. But as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brodie reports, some critics say the new regulations will not solve the problem:

Transcript

The new regulations would force New York power plants to reduce emissions of the two leading causes of acid rain. The plants would have to cut sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions by more than half of 1990 Clean Air Amendment levels. John Sheehan is the spokesman for the advocacy group, the Adirondack Council.

“We feel that New York is setting an example for the rest of the United States…this was the step that we needed to show the Midwest that we were willing to take in order to ask them to do the same thing.”

But many power plant owners in the state feel singling out New York’s facilities will put them at a competitive disadvantage. They also say reducing New York’s emissions will not prevent acid rain from reaching the Adirondacks. To do that, they say power plants across the country would have to adopt similar regulations. The New York state Department of Environmental Conservation is currently reviewing the draft proposal and public comment. The agency expects to have a final decision sometime this fall.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brodie.

Sections of Lakes Closed for Security

Great Lakes boaters will find some areas of the lakes closed to them this boating season. The terrorist attacks last September prompted federal agencies to make parts of the lakes off-limits. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham explains:

Transcript

Great Lakes boaters will find some areas of the lakes closed to them this
boating season. The terrorist attacks last September prompted federal
agencies to make parts of the lakes off-limits. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

The Coast Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers are establishing security
zones where pleasure boaters and commercial fishing boats will be
restricted. For example, a temporary security area around nuclear power
plants was established on Lake Michigan. Now those will become permanent.
Lake St. Clair will have a security zone on the waters around Selfridge Air
National Guard Base near Detroit. And near Sheboygan County, Wisconsin, a
15-mile-wide danger zone, about six miles offshore, is being reestablished as
a live fire exercise area for the Wisconsin Air National Guard. The Army
Corps of Engineers indicates it would have no significant effect on small
businesses, but Wisconsin state officials are furious because the Army Corps
of Engineers has been vague about what it will actually mean for commercial
anglers and pleasure boaters who use the area.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Clean-Up Woes for Power Plant

American Electric Power is working to stop blue clouds of sulfuric acid from descending on towns near the Ohio River. Ironically, the clouds are a by-product of a 200-million dollar system installed in May to help curb smog-producing emissions from the General James M. Gavin Power Plant. The search for a solution is being watched by other power plants in the U.S. that have to comply with stricter anti-smog regulations put in place by the federal government.

Blue clouds of sulfuric acid have descended upon towns in southeastern Ohio and West Virginia more than a dozen times since May. The clouds are from smoke stacks at American Electric Power’s General James M. Gavin plant in rural Cheshire, Ohio. It’s one of the largest coal-burning power plants in North America. The company blames a new 200 million dollar pollution control system for releasing more toxic emissions. If they’re right, other Midwestern power companies may face similar troubles when trying to comply with federal clean air laws. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Natalie Walston reports:

Transcript

Blue clouds of sulfuric acid have descended upon towns in south-eastern Ohio and West Virginia more than a dozen times since may. The clouds are from smoke stacks at American Electric Powers General John M. Gavin plant in rural Cheshire, Ohio. It’s one of the largest coal-burning power plants in North America. The company blames a new 200-million dollar pollution control system for releasing more toxic emissions. If they’re right, other midwestern power companies may face similar troubles when trying to comply with federal clean air laws. The great lakes radio consortium’s Natalie Walston reports.

The small, rundown airport in Mt. Pleasant sits on a flat part of the hills of West Virginia.
It’s surrounded by thick trees. Its rural enough here that it’s common to see wild turkeys dashing across the runways. One summer afternoon airport manager Ben Roush looked out his window. But instead of seeing a plane land … he saw thick smoke clinging to the tops of the trees.

“It looked like, uh, exhaust out of a car or something like that. It wasn’t black smoke it was blue. Very, very visible.”

After the smoke appeared, his phone began to ring.

“The fire department down here called up here and wanted to know if we had a fire up here because it was all in these … it settled to the ground. And, it was in those trees.”

The clouds contain high concentrations of sulfuric acid. That’s not normal … even this close to a power plant that burns coal with a high sulfur content. For years, most coal-burning power plants have had pollution control devices called “scrubbers” to deal with that sulfur. The scrubbers do just what the name implies – they scrub the air clean of sulfur dioxide as well as some other pollutants. But, they don’t do a good job in removing nitrous oxide. Nitrous oxide is blamed in part for causing acid rain and smog.

Paul Chodak is manager of American Electric Power’s Optimization Group. He says AEP installed a selective catalytic reduction system … or SCR … in an effort to remove nitrous oxide. Chodak says the SCR system is a relatively new technology. And, so far, it and the scrubber aren’t working well together. That’s because they are combining to make sulfuric acid, but in a different form. And that form then gets released into the air.

“The SO3 … or sulfuric acid is in very fine droplets … sub-micron size droplets. Very, very tiny. And they’re so small that they travel through the scrubber and they’re not removed. So, the scrubber works very well on the gas in removing SO2. However, it’s not very effective in removing SO3.”

Chodak says this is all because of an effort to reduce emissions that cause acid rain and smog in eastern seaboard states. But… as AEP scrambles to stop polluting the air hundreds of miles away … people who live beneath the smoke stacks claim their health is being sacrificed. They say that in the summer, when the sulfuric acid clouds move in it’s difficult to breathe.

(natural sound of NASCAR race and drunk people carrying on)

Gallipolis is a small city five miles south of the power plant. Today there’s a small crowd of people gathered at Sunny’s bar and grille. People here will only give their first names to an out of town reporter. A man named Steve is drinking a beer at a table with his sister. He says fallout from the plant makes the paint peel off cars.

“All that acid and stuff goes on these cars. They gotta repaint the cars … so you know it’s tearin’ us up. Our bodies. And, like I say, we worry about our kids and grandkids more. We’re old enough that it’s not gonna bother us no more.”

His sister Tammy drags slowly on a cigarette as Steve talks.

When he finishes, she jumps in to say that since the blue clouds started showing up, everyone in town has become sick.

“I have health problems. I cough all the time. Allergies all the time. Allergies to something’. Runny nose. Constantly. You know, I think everyone in town has health problems that live around here.”

But AEP claims the air is cleaner than it was before the SCR system was installed. Paul Chodak says the air turned blue this summer because the sulfuric acid reacted with sunlight on hot, humid days. He says people become scared because they could actually see what they were breathing.

“The hard thing for people to understand is that what is coming out of the stack is significantly cleaner than what was coming out before. This is an improvement from a pollution control perspective. However, it has created this local phenomena that is a problem. And, AEP is moving to address that and we will solve it.”

Sulfuric acid measurements taken by the company and examined by Ohio and U.S. EPA researchers meanwhile don’t show a major sulfuric acid problem. But there are no state standards in place in Ohio for levels of gaseous sulfuric acid in the air.

Kay Gilmer of the Ohio EPA says emissions from AEP have exceeded sulfuric acid standards set by other states. However, she says people near the plant stacks aren’t in immediate danger. But she hesitates to say the air is perfectly safe to breathe.

“We didn’t have anything that would um … that we would … that we looked at that was exceptionally high. But, that was, I don’t want to say that to say we’re not concerned with the problem.”

Meanwhile, people near the plant say they’re tired of having their health jeopardized so people far away from them can breathe easier. They are working with state environmental groups to possibly fight the power plant in court.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Natalie Walston.

Scientist Tracks Air Mysteries

The Great Lakes region is home to major power producers. But along with the electricity they make comes some amount of air pollution. When coal-fired power plants in Illinois and Ohio emit sulfur dioxides, prevailing winds blow them to the Northeast, where they can fall as acid rain. Several northeast states are suing those power plants to clean up their emissions. Earlier this summer, a professor at Clarkson University in northern New York coordinated a unique study to learn more about the life cycle of air pollution, from where it’s produced to where it lands. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein has the story:

Transcript

Earlier this summer, a professor at Clarkson University in northern New York coordinated a unique study to learn more about the life cycle of air pollution, from where it’s produced to where it lands. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein has the story.

Chemical engineering professor Phil Hopke will take any opportunity to get out of his office and over to his field lab. It consists of a concrete slab amongst the weeds in a corner of the local airport. Installed on the concrete are monitors he uses to find out exactly what’s in the air we breathe.

(sound of opening lock)

Hopke unlocks a gate in a chainlink fence. You can already hear a strange hum in the distance. It gets louder as Hopke strides up to one of three white machines the size of dishwashers.

“Come out and change the filters once a day. This one’s for organic constituents in the air.”

He pulls out what looks like an air filter for your furnace. These machines suck in air. They leave a unique footprint of chemicals on the filter that represents what was in the air in this place on this day — chemicals like sulfur dioxide and mercury. Hopke will send these filters to specialty labs around the world to be analyzed.

There are hundreds of stations like this in North America. Groups of researchers study daily air quality for every region of the country. They examine how things like traffic and smokestacks might affect the air we breathe.

But Hopke says they mostly focus on their own areas. They don’t often coordinate studies to see how the chemicals they find move from region to region.

“It struck me a couple of years ago, particularly in the Northeast, that we have these groups talking to one another.”

Working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Hopke convinced 26 sites in the East, from Texas to Toronto, to measure the same stuff on the same days. They chose the whole month of July.

It’s perhaps the largest simultaneous air sampling effort ever conducted in this country. When the data’s complete, the study will track the lifespan of pollution, from when it leaves a smokestack or a car’s tailpipe to when it is taken up by a tree or your lungs.

But scientists can’t just follow one molecule of pollution from a car in St. Louis to a lake in Michigan. They have to make models of how the chemicals move, like how meteorologists make weather maps to trace storm systems. As if that’s not complicated enough, says Hopke, naturally occurring chemicals make the job even tougher.

“You have to keep in mind that the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia are blue because of natural photochemical smog, particles being formed because of the pine materials that come off. Those materials that you smell are chemically reactive and will undergo the same type of smog reactions as human emitted materials.”

So researchers use techniques to separate out the “man-made” pollutants from the “natural” pollutants. Next they look for high concentrations of, say, sulfur dioxide in Chicago on July 15th. Then they follow those high levels east with prevailing winds. They look for high sulfur dioxide levels in Ohio or New York a few days later. After doing this many times in July for many types of chemicals, the researchers hope patterns will begin to emerge.

Hopke sits on a scientific advisory committee that helps the EPA develop pollution standards. He says this coordinated study will bring stronger science to the EPA’s sometimes controversial decisions.

“Suppose I require all power plants to reduce their sulfur dioxide emissions by twenty percent. What does that do for me for particle concentrations in New York City? What will that do? Will that get us where we want in terms of clean air?”

With a study this large in scope, the answers to those questions won’t come quickly. The massive amount of data gathered in the study will take a few years to interpret.

In the meantime, Hopke and the EPA are planning another cooperative sampling effort for wintertime, when temperatures and people’s habits are different from summer.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Sommerstein.

Smog Reduction Plan in Motion

Great Lakes states are slowly complying with new EPA rules designed to reduce smog. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl explains:

Transcript

Great Lakes states are slowly complying with new EPA rules designed to reduce smog. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:

The US EPA is requiring states to reduce emissions of Nitrogen Oxides, a main component in smog and ground level ozone. Coal-fired power plants and industrial boilers are the main producers of the pollutants. John Summerhays is an environmental scientist with the EPA’s Midwest Office. He says the reduction is an attempt to improve public health:

“The smog and ozone can cause a variety of health effects that are principally hard on the lungs. It can contribute to various lung diseases, so this is a big step forward for public health protection.”

Illinois and Indiana recently had their emission reduction plans approved by the Federal Government. Pennsylvania and New York have also been approved. Ohio and Michigan still have yet to submit reduction plans. The deadline for implementing the measures is 2004. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.

Radio Waves Zap Zebra Mussels

Researchers say low frequency radio waves may be a more effective way of controlling zebra mussels. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Scheck has the story:

Transcript

Researchers say low frequency radio waves may be a more effective way of controlling zebra mussels. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Scheck reports.

Zebra mussels have caused millions of dollars of damage to power plants, boats and intake pipes. They’ve also seriously hurt native species in the Great Lakes and other inland waterways. Purdue University chemistry professor Matthew Ryan says he may have found a way to control the zebra mussels without harming fish or other aquatic wildlife. In the laboratory, he says low frequency electromagnetic radio waves were found to cause the zebra mussels to lose critical minerals at a much faster rate than they can acquire them.

“It ultimately kills them. There’s a stress response after a day or so. They stop feeding and begin to close their shells and after about 19 days about 50 percent of the mussels in a given population will be dead.”

Ryan says native fish and clams were not harmed when exposed to the same technique. If it’s proven effective in the wild, he says electrical barriers could block mussels from infesting other lakes and streams. For the Great Lake Radio Consortium, I’m Tom Scheck in Saint Paul.

State to Force Mercury Reductions?

Mercury emissions from more than 150 coal-burning power plants across the Great Lakes are coming under greater scrutiny this summer. Several states are considering ways to reduce those emissions. Wisconsin could become the first state in the nation to issue rules requiring large mercury reductions. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach has the story:

Report Says Regional Air Is Tainted

Electric power plants in some of the Great Lakes states are the
biggest contributors to pollution in the nation. That’s the bottom line
of
the latest study from the Public Interest Research Group. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen reports: