Natural Gas NOW Picks of the Week – August 26, 2018

Tom Shepstone
Shepstone Management Company, Inc.

…

…

Natural Gas NOW readers pass along a lot of stuff every week about natural gas, fractivist antics, emissions, renewables, and other news relating to energy. As usual, emphasis is added.

Natural Gas Power Plant Produces Zero CO2 – Fractivists Go Mad

Well, fractivists are already mad by definition (angry, too) so this Can’t really make them any madder (or any angrier) as they’re already there, but there is prototype power plant  that was just successfully fired up and it yields zero CO2. Yes, zero and when the commercial version comes along in the near future, the world will have changed forever, at least for fractivists. Here’s are the essentials:

The US energy startup, Net Power, has announced that it has successfully fired up its natural-gas plant in La Porte, Texas. In the age of climate change, when reducing emissions should be our primary goal, it may sound odd to celebrate the launch of a fossil fuel-burning plant. But Net Power is unique. Its new facility is the first fossil-fuel power plant that promises to capture all its emissions effectively at zero extra cost, and on May 30 it passed a major milestone in the step towards commercializing a climate-friendly technology.

The underpinning technology, called carbon capture and storage (CCS), has existed since the 1970s…

Net Power’s $150-million pilot plant near Houston makes use of the Allam Cycle, named after its inventor Rodney Allam…

If the company can get the pilot plant fully operational and producing energy—it can generate 25 MW of electricity—Net Power will scale it up to to a full-size power plant that can produce up to 300 MW of electricity, as soon as 2021.

I can hear the wailing now, followed by all the new supposed reasons fracking is dangerous and must be stopped. That’s how it works, of course, if you’re fractivist. Being one means never having to say you were mistaken (or wrong).

Lowering PM2.5 9 (e.g., Switching from Coal to Gas) Will
Increase Life Expectancy More Than Eradicating Lung Cancer

A story in Quartz this week was titled “Lowering air pollution just a bit would increase life expectancy as much as eradicating lung and breast cancer” but it could just have easily been given the slightly different title I offer above. Here’s the important stuff and a neat map from the piece:

Exposure to a prevalent type of air pollution—particulate matter called PM2.5—takes one year off the average global lifespan, according to research published Wednesday (Aug. 22) in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters. But that air pollution is not evenly distributed; for people living in the most-polluted areas of Asia and Africa, the situation is worse—life expectancy for them drops between one year and two months to one year and 11 months.

What’s more, simply reducing global PM2.5 air pollution to levels recommended by the World Health Organization would be the equivalent of globally eradicating breast and lung cancer in terms of life spans.

PM2.5 is released from tailpipes of vehicles, coal-fired power plants, and industrial plants of all kinds. Events like dust storms and wildfires produce large amounts of the particulate matter, too.

Read the whole thing. Coal is a problem. Gas in the antidote. Switching saves lives. It’s as simple as that.

If You Thought It Was Going to Be Easy to Do Renewables…

Supposed experts such as Tony Ingraffea and Mark Jacobson have been preaching that switching to all renewables in short order is a piece of cake, despite opposition in Tony’s own backyard, but it’s much tougher, as those of us with experience in land use battles know. I’ve faced angry NIMBYs and know what it’s like. Here’s yet another example:

Local residents are livid over a California school district’s decision to erect solar panels a few feet away from their homes, creating what they describe as a massive eyesore…

The Palo Alto School District — in an attempt to be more environmentally friendly — has constructed solar panels at five different campuses, with plans for an installment at a sixth school…

Cover of report used by Palo Alta Unified School District to study feasibility of doing solar projects now opposed

Neighbors lashed out during a Palo Alto school board meeting on Tuesday night, detailing their disgust of having to look at solar panels at all times while at home…

“It’s like a big, black tarp was put up on top of the fence. It looks like I’m living under a sports stadium bleacher,” said Ann Davidson, Ostacher’s next-door neighbor. Another resident at the meeting said the panels looked like “a giant spaceship” hovering over her property.

Yes, there’s opposition to everything, especially if it involves energy generated for other people to use and, most especially, if it’s near a university population (Stanford in this instance). Nothing’s easy but a gas well, from which everyone in the immediate vicinity gets income, tends to be more welcomed than most projects. Funny how that works.

The post Natural Gas NOW Picks of the Week – August 26, 2018 appeared first on Natural Gas Now.

https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/natural-gas-now-picks-of-the-week-august-26-2018/