EleBlog

25 Sep, 2008

Martin Wolf, a highly respected economist who writes regularly for the Financial Times, included this in a 7/9/08 column:


If you believe in global warming (or in the health of 1.3 billion people), this is tragic. Wolf noted that low-emitting technologies are "not fully diffused across the globe" and quotes an academic who said that "achieving this could . . . reduce emissions by between five and 10 gigatonnes per annum by 2030 (10% - 20% of 2005 emissions)."

Yow.

25 Sep, 2008

Back on 8/15, this site contained a Loony Prediction on Oil. The gist: I predicted oil would be up to $130/barrel by 10/1/08.

Well, it might not make it all the way back. Today, the price is running @ $107. It did make it up to $120 recently, but that was about one-day games in the commodity market (when the October contracts rolled over to November, and someone or other was caught short at the wrong moment).

Was I wrong? Definitely. The contention was simple: China's cutbacks on factory production and driving in Beijing were at least partly responsible for the drop in the price of crude. Yes, yes, China doesn't use that much, blahblahblah -- go and read the original item (click above) to see the reasoning.

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I still agree with my reasoning. In the past week, I've come across the Fatal Flaw, however -- I assumed that the Chinese would ramp up production and abandon the driving restrictions in Beijing as soon as the Olympics ended (8/24).

Here's where this was wrong:

a. The city hosted the Paralympics right after the Olympics. That was a reason to sustain the lower-the-pollution window for more than a week. I didn't know that.

b. From the 9/9/08 Short Term Energy Outlook, from the DoE's EIA:


I didn't know that. Essentially, China sustained its restriction on energy consumption from a mid-July pre-Olympic pollution draw down on into September.

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In the time since, I came across something I cut out of the 8/2 Financial Times (but didn't read). It's a short column based on the views of Yingxi Yu (a woman) of Barclays Capital. The piece quotes here:

"In oil, government policies have been mainly directed at ensuring supply during the Olympics month. Strong import growth suggests the supply system is operating above minimum inventory requirements, but we see no evidence of inventory building on the scale of the observed demand increase; hence, there is unlikely to be a signficiatn overhang, especially when about 1M vehicles return to the roads after the games."

Had I read those words, I would have been EVEN MORE SURE of what I predicted.

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Yingxi Yu also told the newspaper that "the temporary closure of factories in Beijing implies a possible ramping up in operations when they restart" and that "For certain markets, such as coopoer and aluminum, she bleieves consumption data have been artifically depressed by destocking."

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WHAT THIS MEANS -- FOR THE OIL PRICE PREDICTION:

Let's assume for the sake of argument:


If all of that is true, oil demand (and that for copper, aluminum, and you-name-it) might come back very slowly in China. I still think the price of crude oil is likely to get to $130/barrel, or higher, but I'm not sure of the time frame.

NOTE that I did make a price prediction for the end of 2008 (on TEDMAG.com) that the per-barrel crude price would be between $135 and $175. I made that call back in 12/07, so -- whether it looks good or not in a few months -- it still seems pretty good!!!

25 Sep, 2008

Here's an addendum -- in which Joe Salimando changes his mind in just a few hours -- on the Energy Secretary's Extra High Voltage transmission line idea.

At first, when I heard the speech, with the big piece on EHV, I thought this was a bit crazy. Remember, I credit Bodman with being intelligent. What we need, of course, is DISTRIBUTED generation -- CHP plants (see previous item posted today) . . . wind and solar all over the place . . . etc.

So a few hours later, when Bodman's deputy for electricity (Kevin Kolevar) sat down with the media for a short time, I asked him a direct question about the EHV. I wasn't hostile, I just wanted to know.

- - - - -

Kolevar explained the pro-EHV point of view succinctly. The idea is:

Large windfarms are going to be located remotely.

Large solar electric installations are going to be located remotely.

Large electric power plants that use coal and make use of carbon-neutralizing technologies are going to be located remotely.

Nuclear power plants are going to be located away from major cities.
 
. . . and so on.

Therefore, if you are pro-solar, or pro-coal-with-controlled-emissions, or pro-wind, or pro-nuclear . . . you have to take into account that the power plants of the future will be located a long way away from the major urban centers of the U.S.

So it follows (in this line of thinking, anyway) that what you will want is EHV transmission lines, which would be the most efficient way to get the power from the remote places it will be generated to the places that people live and work.

- - - - -

I understand this line of thinking. The notion is: We're going to need a LOT of electricity. We can't be certain we'll meet it with a lot of small, dispersed power plants. We can't be sure we'll get 1 million solar roofs in California anytime soon. We can't place a big bet on CHP -- for that matter, we can't place a big bet on distributed energy meeting our future needs.

Therefore, the safe bet is that BIG power plants (even if they are concentrating solar plants or mega-wind-farms) are going to be needed, and built. And if that's the case, why fart around sending the power over smaller transmission systems?

I'm not sure I agree with this line of thinking. But I did change my mind during the course of the day -- from thinking Bodman had lost his mind, to giving him credit for (at least) consistent thinking.

My basic belief is that CHP, microturbines, fuel cells, solar on every roof, small wind installations, and one heck of a lot of energy conservation are -- together -- the answer. But even I am coming to question whether that line of thinking will solve our energy problems.

25 Sep, 2008

Sam Bodman, the current Energy Secretary, may be the only member of the Bush Administration that I can stomach. He's not stupid. That's not to say that he (like me) is a Liberal -- he ain't. He's grounded in solid Republican values.

But he makes sense anyway.

He delivered a keynote at GridWeek. It wasn't a big departure from what he said last year, I don't think.

But there was some interesting NEWS the Secretary threw in to this speech -- the idea that we need to have an EHV transmission system (he means 345 kV or higher). Here it is:

If we are to truly transform our electric system, then we must come together to answer some key questions about our energy future.

And one critical – but unanswered – question is whether or not we need an interconnected extra high voltage (or “EHV”) transmission system.

Just as we’ve done with the smart grid concept over the last three years, the time has come to aggressively engage this question and to decide on a path forward.  Such a system would be a high-capacity inter-regional network of high-voltage [345 kV and higher] transmission lines that would augment but not supplant our existing lower-capacity networks.

To put it simply, it would be the electrical equivalent of the interstate highway system.  Today, by comparison, we have some high-voltage lines in some areas, but they are not integrated into a network.

In my view, the benefits of such as system could be extensive and could enhance our nation’s energy security and economic well-being.

First off, if we believe that renewable power will continue to play an increasingly large role in our power generation, as I do, then we must confront the problem of linking up large-scale clean-energy facilities with major population centers.

And, in my view, relying on large amounts of remotely-sited generation – whether from wind, solar, geothermal, clean-coal, nuclear or other sources – may not be feasible without building an EHV overlay system.

Secondly, such a system would greatly enhance the reliability and robustness of transmission and has the potential to be considerably more efficient than our current grid – particularly when married with smart grid technologies.

Our nation’s fleet of power plants is very diverse already.  And that diversity is a good thing because it allows operators to adjust to relative changes in price and availability of supply, as well as to adapt to severe weather, maintenance problems and other challenges.

However, this also means that the optimal flow pattern changes constantly.  And so, a robust, smart transmission network is essential to operate the fleet in a flexible, reliable and efficient manner under a wide range of conditions.

This is particularly challenging as we consider the new generation capacity that will come online over the next several decades.

There would likely be other benefits as well, including enhanced resiliency and security in the event of a catastrophic, albeit low-probability, event – such as a combination of near-simultaneous failures of key equipment, a major natural disaster, or a terrorist attack.

While the cost of putting an EHV system in place – and making it “smart” – would be substantial, at the end of the day, the relative cost of transmission is still likely to remain a small fraction of electricity’s total delivered cost – even into the future.

Today, transmission accounts for between 5 and 10% of the cost of a delivered kWh, providing benefits that greatly outweigh its costs.  Looking ahead, regardless of whether or not we pursue an EHV system, our nation will make major investments in all parts of our electricity system – generation, transmission, and distribution facilities.  And we need to make the right ones.

Accordingly, as we have done with the smart grid concept, we should seriously consider whether an EHV overlay in some form should be integrated into our plans for modernizing the transmission grid.

There are clear benefits of such an overlay, but also a number of uncertainties.  For example, major new discoveries of domestic natural gas could lead to an extended period of lower gas prices and make it possible to generate electricity at low cost close to load centers; major advances in photovoltaic technology could make onsite generation much more cost-effective in many areas; and major advances in energy storage technology could combine synergistically with onsite generation.

In short, it’s possible to envision some long-term scenarios in which an EHV overlay could turn out to be less advantageous than it appears today. At this point, we just don’t know for sure.

25 Sep, 2008

I attended GridWeek -- 1.5 days of it, anyway -- which ended today, 9/25, Washington, D.C. This is a long, long story. I am going to tell it, here on the EleBlog -- in bits and bytes.

First, some definitions and information about the event itself. This is an EleBlog take, so it's not necessarily the official story.

1. There is an idea out there called "The Smart Grid." If you were part of the electrical industry in the first half of the 1990s, you remember "The Smart House" -- and a shudder just went up your spine. Overlook that. This is something else.

2. The idea of "The Smart Grid" is to take today's outdated national electrical transmission + distribution infrastructure and update it -- somehow. I heard a lot of optimistic stuff at the sessions I attended. I sure wish it would all come to pass. Why am I skeptical? We need at least $1 trillion in spending over the next 10 years -- just on T+D (forget generation for a second). HOLY MOLEY!!!

3. There's a lot more to "The Smart Grid." I didn't do it justice with #2 above. I'll try in the coming posts.

4. The U.S. Dept. of Energy is a partner in GridWeek, has been an enthusiastic participant, and likes what it has seen in two editions. I heard an assistant Energy secretary, in a semi-informal conversation with the press (it can't be informal if a bunch of ink-stained wretches have their notebooks open, can it?), say that the GridWeek format was something the department really liked -- and they'd like to extend it to other stuff on which they are working on in the electrical area.

5. Some amazing numbers and information came out of people's mouths during this event. I certainly didn't get all of it; for one thing, there were 3 breakout sessions going on at once, and I didn't hear everything. Most of the presentations are on the Web, and I'll download them, print them, and eventually read them -- so maybe the EleBlog's "coverage" of this event will extend, in dribs and drabs, to Christmas.

6. An awful lot is being demanded of electric utilities. Coming from the electrical construction world, and having watched these idiots make A MAJOR BOTCH out of deregulation, I don't have a lot of sympathy for the companies and their executives. However, it's fair to note that they are being pulled in a lot of directions. It's not possible that the leaders of this industry can charge forward in all of these directions and make significant progress all at once. For one thing, they ain't got the money.

7. Finally (finally for now), there is a Big Heaping Steaming Mass of Information coming out of the electrical utility business -- when it comes to energy efficiency, alternative energy, energy T+D, and more -- all at the same time. At one press event, I wrote down so many notes on reports that one woman (a California PUC commissioner) talked about that I got them confused. There's a report coming out soon from the Electricity Advisory Committee to the Energy Secretary -- I didn't even know the EAC existed. And there is more. It's a confusing time.

More as I get it out of my notes.

25 Sep, 2008

Kim Crossman of Portland Energy Conservation Inc. presented "Best Practices & Pitfalls" on combined heat & power (CHP) for commercial buildings -- 4/23, at the National Conf. on Building Commissioning. Proceedings here.

[I didn't attend the event, I just ended up obtaining the presentation and leafing thru it]

If you don't know what CHP is 00



OK. With that as background, here's the "realistic turnkey pricing ranges" for CHP plants, as given by Crossman a few months ago:


From the bottom of the same slide that offered those numbers:

25 Sep, 2008

I've written some columns recently about the U.S. economy, and you can find them here -- but the ones I would like to call to your attention today are oriented toward the electrical industry.

Lighting & More -- I went to the American Lighting Association's annual shindig, which was held here in National Harbor, Md. I detail remarks from 3 electrical industry speakers. It's interesting stuff, thanks to what they said (more than my write-up).

Green + the electrical industry. Here's a snippet from this piece:

21 Sep, 2008

Here's a how-not-to-do-it story from CE Pro magazine. From the article:


A great (and short) installation story, and there are before/after pictures, too.

21 Sep, 2008

Quoting an article from Communications News:


There's more -- here -- but it's not all about cabling. The writer is from ADC.

EleBlog take: That's a short paragraph, really, but it contains stuff I've never before thought about -- or heard about/read about elsewhere.

21 Sep, 2008

You might not be involved in the electric utility business at all, but you need to read this opinion piece from T&D World magazine -- by a guy from Detroit Edison. It includes this:

We have begun to create a network of dispatchable customer generating (DCG) assets to add low-cost peaking capacity to our generation mix, with the DCG becoming one of the assets in the stack, along with traditional generating capacity, demand response and energy efficiency.

EleBlog take: This ain't fantasy. It is NOT a plan. It's what's happening in the real world!

21 Sep, 2008

This graphic might not look all that encouraging, but the source (the American Institute of Architects) says it IS. It's the "work on the boards" survey results, including the most recent report.



From AIA:


. . . there's more if you follow the link.

21 Sep, 2008

It's @ 6.5% in the past year, according to Turner Construction (the nation's largest general contractor) -- as reported here. 

21 Sep, 2008

A blog on the site of California Builder & Engineer magazine notes that the state authorities say enforcing greenhouse gas emissions rules will BOOST the state economy. Other folks (Republicans, construction types, and "business leaders," according to the blog) maintain otherwise. There are links in the brief entry to where you can find info on the "Anti" position. 

21 Sep, 2008

McGraw-Hill Construction has updated construction starts data -- the $ value of new construction started so far in 2008:

YEAR-TO-DATE CONSTRUCTION STARTS
Unadjusted Totals, In Millions of Dollars

	8 Mos. 2008	8 Mos. 2007	% Change
Nonresidential Building	$169,153	$161,852	+5
Residential Building	119,868	194,670	-38
Nonbuilding Construction	98,337	98,603	-0-
Total Construction	$387,358	$455,125	-15

EleBlog take: Last month's data (thru 7 months) showed the total - 14%. So we've taken a minor step back.

19 Sep, 2008

A page on the Energy Efficiency/Renewable Energy piece of the U.S. DoE's website provides model contract language for federal deals involving energy-consuming products and systems. Included: CFLs, exit signs, distribution transformers, motors -- and much more. 

19 Sep, 2008

This past summer, TEDMAG.com posted a column in which I noted that we need to NOT drill for oil off our shores. The reason is NOT environmental concerns, but an eye to the future. Here's a part of the thing:


To my surprise (and, no doubt, having ZERO connection with what I wrote) -- someone else feels the same way. Here's the first three paragraphs of an op-ed from The Boston Globe by Jed Horne:

Drilling will be an environmental disaster, foes warn - something we know a thing or two about here in Louisiana. And even when it comes on line it won't make a whit of difference in the price at the pump. Maybe so, the pro-drilling crowd replies, but there's an important psychology in pushing jack-up rigs into waters off Florida and California and maybe even New England. It will spook speculators into a sell-off.

All true, perhaps - and utterly irrelevant. The real reason to retain the ban is not that drilling is too messy or that the oil won't be valuable enough to make a difference at the gas pump. It's that it's entirely too valuable. Too valuable to squander on an economy as wasteful as ours.

Yep.

19 Sep, 2008

A blogger for NEMA put together a few well-chosen words about energy-efficient lighting, in response to a Washington Times op-ed piece. NEMA (which is the Natl. Electrical Manufacturers Assn., if you didn't know) allows responders to post on its site. There is (as of now) one comment, which includes this:


EleBlog take:

a. I do not read the Washington Times. It is a newspaper owned by the Rev. Moon. Leaving political leanings aside, I don't believe any newspaper should be owned by a religious organization (period). Plus, I'm pretty sure I can't give ANY credibility to a newspaper owned by a person who believes what Moon seems to believe.

b. The NEMA blogger correctly notes that the law DID NOT DO AWAY with incandescent bulbs. They just have to come up in the world in terms of efficiency (by 2012-14). I'm thinking that's a possibility.

c. The respondent, however, is correct. Fluorescent lighting is not a lot of fun.

19 Sep, 2008

A longish article (for a newsletter) on the AIA site talks about the Cellophane House and the fact that the folks at Kieran Timberlake "believe this kind of pre-fabricated dwelling is poised to change the residential marketplace." 

19 Sep, 2008

With this week's crazy gyrations in stock markets (and other markets), you might want to give investment decisions a wide berth for a while. But sooner or later, you might become interested in investing some $ in Alternative Energy.

ETFzone.com has put together a short article on exchange-traded funds that focus on the alternative energy sector. I think ETFs might be a viable alternative for your money. Take a look!

[Note: I'm not sure whether you'll have to Register to see that page, but if you do -- well, it's free]

19 Sep, 2008

"Starts Jump 30% In August" is the headline on the 6-page report on construction starts from Reed Construction Data. Here's what Jim Haughey, veteran construction economist, has to say:


EleBlog take: For the record, I don't believe there will be a modest improvement in housing construction any time before 2012.

19 Sep, 2008

From the Texas Construction report on its subcontractor rankings:


The magazine divided its rankings into two PDFs:

15 Sep, 2008

Intermountain Contractor magazine, for one reason or another, did not rank the specialty contractors by category. The 6-page PDF, which includes a bit of a story, puts Cache Valley Electric at #2 among all contractors (#1 is a concrete/excavation company). CVE is credited with $122.5M in 2007 sales -- down significantly from $189M in 2006. 

15 Sep, 2008

McGraw-Hill has one magazine devoted solely to CA -- find the story on the top specialty contractors (which, totally unlike many of the others offered in other links here, isn't really that interesting) -- here.

Considering it's the 5th, 6th, or 7th biggest country in the world, the PDF isn't much to write home about, either -- a 6-pager, with just 84 specialty contractors listed. There are 10 top electricals listed, with Cupertino at #1 ($338.4M in 2007 sales) and Royal Electric at the bottom of that select list ($48M).

15 Sep, 2008

Here's a fascinating "fast fact" from Southwest Construction, comparing the results for 2007 with those for 2006:

Most categories saw increases, including concrete (+34%), electrical (+25%) and mechanical (+4%). You can find more statistics scattered throughout the rankings in Fast Facts.

You'll have to go here (and to the bottom of the story) to download the 194-contractor ranking in the region OR the rankings by state OR the rankings by category (which you'll need to see the electricals). That's on the first of the 10-page PDF, with 20 ECs -- from #1 (Delta Diversified, also #1 last year) with $118M in '07 revenues in the region, to #20, Spectra, with $15.1M.

15 Sep, 2008

A 20-page PDF provides the words + rankings of the Northwest Construction 2007 rankings. There are 16 electrical contractors gracing page 15 of the PDF ("page 32") running from JH Kelly of Longview, Wash. at $392M (moving up from #12 last year) to Parkin Electric of Oregon City, Ore. at #16 ($2.9M). 

15 Sep, 2008

Southeast Construction magazine covers 4 states. Here's the lead on the brief verbiage:

 (More)

15 Sep, 2008

Top specialty contractors in the South Central region -- the 5 states in the headline -- are covered in a brief story here. Included:

CLICK HERE for a 12-page PDF, which lists the top specialty contractors (not just the electricals) ranked by the 5-state region, then ranked by specialty, and then by state. There are 34 electrical contractors on that list (page 9 of the PDF, also numbered as "page 24"). #34 on the list is Laird Electric @ $1,000,000 in 2007 sales. #1, of course, is ISC, named in full above -- @ $115M.

15 Sep, 2008

Some of the McGraw-Hill Construction regional magazines have recently supplied lists of the top specialty contractors in their areas. You'll see stuff on this in the next bunch of items, including links to PDFs and various information in brief. 

10 Sep, 2008

I was away recently for a while (obviously -- no posts here), and I caught up on reading. Among many things, I read a single-page article from the 5/10 issue of The Economist, Liberty in America is not quite as revered as its leaders pretend.

I'm going to cut to the chase -- these sentences:

• This includes 1.4 million blacks, or 14% of the black male population.

10 Sep, 2008

One problem with predictions is that they are made, fetch a headline, and then disappear into the ether. I don't know much about a company named Foresight Analytics, but the company's future projections caused National Real Estate Investor to slap this headline on an item -- Foresight Analytics: Construction Lending to Slow Sharply in Second Half.

Some relevant stuff:

“Commercial construction — if it is not quite grinding to a halt — is getting pretty close in the credit crunch. The broader credit crunch is having an impact and making lenders more reticent to make construction loans. Also developers are more cautious as well,” says Matt Anderson, a partner with Foresight Analytics.

Foresight expects to see the growth in lending on commercial real estate projects tapering off, with essentially no growth for the second half of the year. And there could even be a decline going into 2009. This means that there are a couple of lean years ahead for developers.

Taking into account single-family construction loans as well, construction loans outstanding contracted 0.7% to $627 billion during the second quarter, the first such decline since the second quarter of 1994, according to Foresight Analytics.

EleBlog take: For electrical contractors, this means a very lean 2nd half of 2009. At the very least!

10 Sep, 2008

From an article in the current issue of Strategy + Business (The Rise of the New Blue Chips):

10 Sep, 2008

From an e-mail I received last night from the Alliance to Save Energy:

• 2.5 billion people worldwide "have no access to modern energy services, and instead rely on open fires for their cooking, heating, and lighting needs."

• [that group includes the 1.5 billion of us who live on less than $1/day]

• Burning of biomass for energy "causes a staggering 1.5 million premature deaths each year and impedes sustainable development in numerous ways."

• "Black carbon emitted by the burning of biomass also is the 2nd-largest contributor to current global warming (after carbon dioxide emissions)"

10 Sep, 2008

From a 4/21/08 presentation from EPRI (the Electrical Power Research Institute) --

• a 27-inch color TV uses 100 watts of power. A 42-inch plasma TV? 250W.

• a set-top box uses 30W of power. Two set-top boxes "consumer as much energy in one year as a refrigerator."

10 Sep, 2008

From a presentation I ran across by someone from BuildingAdvice (which is really in the air business) --

• 98% of all buildings (in the U.S.) are under 100,000 sq. ft.

• Buildings of less than 100,000 sq. ft. consume 58% of all the energy used in commercial buildings.