It would be instructive to see the pricing at the end of the day between coal and where and how the coal is produced, tar sands and natural gas for electrical power. The environmental costs of blowing up mountains, creating huge tailing ponds and extraction and refining costs, and transportation and distribution expenses and their impacts i.e. trains, trucks, pipelines need to be put into the equations.
The same goes between fossil fuels, hydroelectricity and nuclear, all of which have their tradeoffs. For example, what are the true disposal costs of fly ash versus that of nuclear waste, per unit generated? FCA would allow power buyers to make effective decisions on where they get the bulk of their electricity.
There are also many nagging questions over green power especially as to whether it is truly environmentally sound. For example, small scale hydroelectric projects have been touted as alternatives to large ones.
Yet is this actually the case when FCA methodologies are applied, such as on construction of the dams and building new transmission lines? It is one thing to reuse an existing dam or dammed river near in-place distribution systems, such as on the Moira River in Belleville, Ontario; it is another to 'greenfield' a run-of-river plant in coastal British Columbia.
The same goes for wind and solar power. Do they cost-effectively produce the power for the investment and operating i.e. maintenance expenses required, for the land consumed?
Questions have been raised about ethanol thanks to FCA, and it is falling out of fashion as a result what with the trucks and trains to haul and the plants to process the material. It follows wood fuel that was also touted as an alternative energy source.
I got a perspective of wood fuel some 20 years ago when I worked as a reporter in a small British Columbia town. A power plant at the local sawmill that burned waste fuel often belched out soot. The particulate matter and other emissions from wood stoves and furnaces created harmful smog in local valleys in winter.
FCA also needs to be applied to smart grid strategies. I've heard the argument that smart grid investments makes sense where electricity costs are high i.e. Ontario and grid partners i.e. in Ohio are unstable as witnessed by the 2003 blackout, but the ROI may not be there in British Columbia or Manitoba where the rates are low and the infrastructure is stable.
FCA should also be applied when comparing how that energy is used i.e. power plants to create electricity for use in rail and urban transit or in internal combustion engines. That will help policymaker decide more accurately whether to go with clean diesel, CNG/LNG, hybrid, hydrogen and electrification.
Finally FCA should be applied to conservation versus added building or buying additional generation capacity. If conservation via changes in methods and processes, or investments in more efficient technologies proves to be comparatively cheaper then more people, and commercial and institutions will conserve. And that's win-win all around.
I received an e-mail last week from Jim McGilligan, who has a degree in engineering from the University of Delware, who just came across this article on water and energy titled: "What is your water footprint?" published in the (Lafourche Parish, La.) Daily Comet. Written by Tom Rooney, president and CEO of SPG Solar in Novato, Calif the article is "the best I've ever seen" on this topic, Jim tells me.
The article raises the key points that we should consider water consumption and concern ourselves with the amounts of energy required to heat and cool water when looking at shrinking our carbon footprints i.e. 'water footprints'.
For most types of commercial electric power the story says you need water: to turn into steam i.e. coal, gas, nuclear, oil or to push turbines i.e. hydro. In the former grouping this water which must be cooled and reused rather than dumped into lakes, ponds, and streams, harming aquatic life.
While the articles doesn't mention this in the latter example i.e. hydro, water must be dammed, interfering with fish runs and turning farms and forests into eerie liquid landscapes, whose remains can be seen during low levels. There has been and continues to be costly efforts to provide for or restore salmon on rivers blocked by hydro projects.
The story says that it takes at least a gallon of water to create one kilowatt hour of power: enough to run your air conditioner for one hour.
It cites estimates from Rachelle Hill and Dr. Tamim Younos of Virginia Tech University that "fossil fuel thermoelectric plants use between ... 8 to 16 gallons of water to burn one 60-watt light bulb for 12 hours per day. Over the duration of one year this one incandescent light bulb would consume about 3,000 to 6,300 gallons of water."
"So we use water to create energy, and we use energy to create water -- to create more energy to create more water," says Rooney. "And on and on and on it goes in a downward spiral that completely distorts the way we think and act about water and power."
Rooney, perhaps not surprisingly given his company recommends using photovoltaic cells. While these solutions will not replace water-based power sources (not in my part of the world i.e. the Pacific Northwest where in winter the sun is that weird object we know is out there) he does call attention to the need to cut down on water use and on the energy consumption in turning water into energy. Not when we have other uses for that water i.e. drinking, to sustain life forms that we eat.
With growing populations and global warming that has led to droughts--and the Moon a little far away for a pipeline--we can't afford to waste that ultimately life-given commodity.
Thanks Jim!