October 21, 2009

Spent nuclear fuel may not have a permanent storage site. But that does not mean the energy form is dead. Far from it -- particularly because the used fuel can be reprocessed.

The issue is now under consideration by the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. While the concept has its foes who argue that it is expensive and a recipe for disaster, others say that it would help solve the long-term problem of where to store spent fuel. Reprocessing, now prevalent in France and Japan, separates the uranium and the plutonium from the rest of the nuclear waste. Nuclear operators would then be able to get between 20 percent and 30 percent more use from the uranium.

October 19, 2009

At age 70, Bluebonnet could choose to settle in as a stodgy, creaky electric cooperative intent on clinging to its heydays of the past. Not quite.

Indeed, the deft decision-makers at the Bastrop, Texas co-op are arguably ahead of the utility pack in pursuit of their version of the smart grid. CEO Mark Rose elaborates on his unique vision for the progressive co-op in a compact and eloquent document titled "The Sustainable Grid." Defining characteristics cover everything from lowering the co-op's carbon footprint to embracing the latest technology.

October 16, 2009

From smart meter pilot programs to plans for electric vehicle charging stations, utilities are moving from concept to reality as the ways in which electricity is used and delivered is radically altered in the early 21st Century.

Northeast Utilities, based in Hartford, Connecticut, is venturing into both directions with perhaps the largest smart meter pilot program in the United States and with preliminary plans to develop charging stations for plug-in electric vehicles. The smart meter pilot is for Connecticut Light & Power Company (CL&P) customers. The vehicle charging venture is proposed for CL&P and Northeast's Massachusetts subsidiary, Western Massachusetts Electric Company (WMECO).

October 14, 2009

When the utility industry talks about home energy management, the focus is often on managing home appliances such as dishwashers and refrigerators. But what about all of the other stuff we plug in -- or just never unplug -- each day? The "plug load," which consists of many consumer electronics (CEs), just doesn't get enough air time today in smart grid discussions.

Yet CEs -- such as cellular phones and computers, televisions -- will be a $165 billion industry in the United States in 2009, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. And these electronic devices consume not only our dollars, but our energy as well. A 2008 study by the California Energy Commission's Public Interest Energy Research Program found that such devices account for 15 to 19 percent of California residential energy use and, "if household electronic energy use were assumed to be the same in the rest of the United States as in California, these devices would consume 9 to 12 percent of the electricity used in the average U.S. home."

October 02, 2009

Not long ago there were two widely held views when it came to the fossil fuels that powered nearly three-quarters of the electric generation industry: the United States was the "Saudi Arabia of coal," with a huge supply that would last well over two centuries, and the increasing reliance on natural gas to produce electricity would stress this country's ability to meet the demand from domestic, or even North American, sources.

Now those assumptions are being turned on their heads as a combination of reports examining recoverable resources are gaining currency. Simply put, separate analyses by government agencies and private organizations indicate recoverable coal resources are not nearly as plentiful as once thought, while a combination of new discoveries and technological advances have made supplies of natural gas much more bountiful, perhaps enough to last another century at current rates of consumption.