For this reason, the first renewable project that a city undertakes is often based in its own community.
Or it could be a community solar program, which allows residents to subscribe to a shared solar project within the community.
These kinds of projects visibly demonstrate a local government’s dedication to climate action.
The clean electricity they provide to municipal facilities and residents can reduce community-wide greenhouse gas emissions.
Nevertheless, the upfront cost of installing solar can be daunting to cash-strapped local governments.
One way a city can manage costs is by entering into an on-site physical power purchase agreement (PPA), a financial contract in which a solar developer owns and maintains a solar photovoltaic system that is installed on a municipally-owned building and sells the electricity to the city at a discount.
Over the 20-year term of the contract with developer Sol Systems, Washington anticipates saving $25 million from reduced electricity costs.
Fayetteville, Arkansas used a similar model to make progress toward its goal of achieving 100 percent municipal use of clean energy by 2030.
Stimulating the Local Economy and Creating Well-Paying Green Jobs In 2018, the U.S. added 110,000 net new clean energy jobs, outnumbering jobs from fossil fuels by about three to one.
The Campaign is expected to create more than 10,000 jobs for Philadelphia residents in 10 years and create $200 million in savings for the local economy.
For the first time, carbon dioxide is being captured at a biomass power plant in the UK.
Britain’s Drax announced that its pilot bioenergy carbon capture and storage project is expected to capture a ton of CO2 a day from its North Yorkshire-based wood-burning plant.
The company is also finding ways to store and use the captured carbon. “This innovative technology has the potential to make huge strides in our efforts to tackle climate change while kick-starting an entirely new cutting-edge industry in the UK,” Britain’s energy and clean growth minister Claire Perry said in a press release.
The BBC explained how such plants can go negative: When a forest grows, the trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and use it to make their wood.
It’s called carbon neutral.
Proponents of carbon capture and storage or CCS, tout it as a way to help stop global temperature rise.
However, critics say the nascent technology is too expensive to implement on a large scale for it to be commercially viable. “One way to reduce coal’s impact is to capture, compress and bury its emissions—but it’s much simpler, cheaper and safer to simply leave the coal in the ground,” Simon Holmes à Court, a senior adviser to the Energy Transition Hub at Melbourne University, wrote in the Guardian.
Every year, Drax’s biomass plant burns about 7 million metric tons of wood chips—mostly from trees grown in the U.S.—to generate 6 percent of the UK’s electricity, according to the BBC.
Ascent Resources, the UK-based firm engaged in a long-running attempt to begin fracking at Petišovci, a plan that has been delayed due to a lack of permits, said on Monday that it’s now looking to develop other projects outside Slovenia.
A report published on the London South East website, sets out how the company is still waiting on permits to re-stimulate it’s existing wells to produce more gas from the field, and install a processing facility to enable the natural gas it produces to enter the Slovenian national grid.
The story became more heated in late 2018, with accusations that Ascent Resources shareholders, or other interested parties, had been sending threatening messages to the Slovenian Environment Agency, as reported here, as well as threats by the company to sue the Slovene government for damages.
While Ascent Resources claims to be hopeful that that it will receive the permits needed to continue the Petišovci project, it is now looking beyond Slovenia and to other locations in the region with a more developed oil and gas infrastructure, working petroleum system and an established regulatory and legal framework.
The firm’s Chief Executive, Colin Hutchinson, is quoted as saying “While the Petišovci project remains a potentially very valuable asset, I am pleased that we now have a way forward that is not entirely based on Slovenia and the award of permits.” At the time of writing the shares of Ascent Resources (AST) were trading at £0.32 in London, down from £1.40 a year ago.
A joint venture comprising Fluor Corp., the Kazakh Institute of Oil and Gas (KING), KazGiproNefteTrans Engineering Co. (KGNT EC) and WorleyParsons has developed one of the world’s largest single 3D intelligent plant design models for a Tengizchevroil LLP megaproject, Fluor reported Tuesday.
“One of the largest oil and gas projects in the world, the engineering effort is providing the design and tools to enable the delivery of the project in a safe and efficient manner,” Al Collins, president of Fluor’s Energy & Chemicals unit in Europe, Africa and Middle East, said in a written statement.
“We have worked with Tengizchevroil and our joint venture partners in Kazakhstan for more than 20 years.” Fluor and others in the JV created a model for Tengizchevroil’s Future Growth Project – Wellhead Pressure Management Project (FGP-WPMP), which is the next expansion of the Tengiz oil field in western Kazakhstan.
In July 2016 Tengizchevroil sanctioned KPJV to provide detailed engineering, procurement and construction management support services for FGP-WPMP.
When it announced the contract award at the time, Fluor noted that the project will entail: The FGP component, which will use sour gas injection technology to maximize Tengiz production capacity to approximately 39 million tons of oil per year The WPMP component, which will keep existing Tengiz plants full by lowering the flowing wellhead pressure and boost the pressure to Tengiz’s six processing trains The single 3D plant model that the JV created enables project engineers worldwide to see real-time developments in the design, Fluor noted Tuesday.
In addition, it pointed out that the data-centric model integrates 2D and 3D information to allow 3D visualization of the plant.
Moreover, the company stated that the model allows sequencing tools to optimize construction and produce advanced engineering, construction and installation work packages.
“Spanning multiple time zones, work is taking place around the clock.
The project’s 3D model provides the latest integrated design and data management system using millions of pieces of verified data to deliver construction-driven execution.” Fluor reported in 2016 that the project, which is expected to require approximately 20,000 construction workers at its peak, could achieve first oil in 2022.
Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone.
Energy delivery company Enbridge Inc. has revealed that it expects $7 billion of projects to come into service this year, including two of “significant size”.
“The $1.6 billion Valley Crossing project, which will supply 2.6 billion cubic feet of gas into the Mexican market, has substantially completed its onshore and offshore pipeline installation and is on track to go into service in the fourth quarter of 2018,” the statement continued.
In the first half of 2018, Enbridge brought $1.6 billion of commercially secured projects into service.
Earlier this month, Enbridge announced that it had closed previously announced agreements to sell its U.S. midstream businesses and monetize a portion of its renewables business for combined cash proceeds of approximately $3.15 billion. “We are pleased to have moved quickly to execute and close these transactions at strong valuations,” Al Monaco, president and chief executive officer of Enbridge, said in a company statement on August 1.
Enbridge, which describes itself as a North American leader in delivering energy, operates the world’s longest crude oil and liquids transportation system.
The company’s history dates back to 1949.
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Browse is seen as a key source of growth for Woodside but has been stuck on the drawing board for years as plans for onshore and floating LNG development estimated at $30 billion to $45 billion were scrapped.
The plan now is to develop the giant gas field to feed the North West Shelf plant, Australia’s biggest LNG plant, when its current gas source runs dry in the 2020s.
The NW Shelf joint venture partners “are very much aligned now” on completing tariff talks “by the end of the second quarter”, he said.
A final investment decision could come earlier than the current target of 2021. “The opportunity for us is to bring that forward to be able to meet market — general consensus now says the market’s going to be short by 2021,” Coleman said.
Just two years ago, the market had been expected to remain in oversupply until around 2023, but that has changed following a sharp jump in gas demand in China.
Woodside is also pushing ahead with an oil project off Senegal, where its partners are Cairn Energy and FAR Ltd, while a dispute with FAR over Woodside’s acquisition of a 40 percent stake in the project enters arbitration.
It has invited offers for a floating production storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) and other equipment for the project.
Output rose to 22.2 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe) from 21.4 mmboe in the March quarter last year, helped by a ramp-up in production at the Wheatstone LNG project, run by Chevron, in Western Australia.
(Reporting by Sonali Paul; additional reporting By Susan Mathew in Bengaluru; editing by Richard Pullin) Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone.
A college student, a lawyer, and a videographer attended a protest at an oil and gas construction site in Greeley, Colorado in early March and all three are now getting sued by the company behind the massive project.
The student, Cullen Lobe, already was facing criminal charges in Weld County, Colorado for locking himself to a bulldozer as part of an act of civil disobedience at the oil and gas construction site.
While Lobe was arrested and now faces criminal charges, the four other individuals were not arrested but instead were given criminal citations by the Weld County Sheriff’s Department for trespassing at the Extraction Oil and Gas drilling site.
The legal action against Lamb, a lawyer with the National Lawyers Guild who was acting as a legal observer at the March 8 protest, and Mack, an independent journalist who videotaped the protest, comes at a time of increasing concern surrounding the arrest and prosecution of reporters and protesters critical of U.S. government and powerful corporations.
The lawsuit against Lobe is “meant to harass and intimidate” him while seeking to “chill and silence the community,” Lobe’s lawyer, Jason Flores-Williams, wrote in a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
In its March 9 lawsuit, which was amended three weeks later, Extraction Oil and Gas asked the District Court of Weld County, Colorado to force the 23-year-old Lobe and the others to pay “all available damages, fees and costs, including at least nominal damages.” Additionally, the complaint seeks a ruling to prevent the defendants from committing “any further trespass” on any Extraction Oil & Gas sites.
Along with Lobe and the other defendants, Extraction Oil and Gas named “John and Jane Does 1-8” in its lawsuit.
In 2014, in the face of the parents’ resistance, Extraction Oil and Gas abandoned the Frontier Academy site.
The drilling site represents a “clear case of environmental racism,” Lobe told ThinkProgress.
Flores-Williams cited the 1984 case in his motion to dismiss Extraction Oil and Gas’s lawsuit against Lobe.
MPs are to press ministers on why they have left investors hanging in limbo over taxpayer support for a pioneering £1.3bn tidal lagoon in Swansea.
The government has still not indicated whether it is minded to support the lagoon, 15 months since an independent review told ministers to back the clean energy project.
Tidal Lagoon Power, a Gloucester-based company, has been pushing for years to build the first of five lagoons at Swansea, to harness power from the ebb and flow of the tides.
But the company needs an indication the government is prepared to negotiate a guaranteed price of power for the renewable energy it produces, akin to the ones awarded to windfarm and nuclear power station developers.
How tidal lagoons will work Swansea Bay Tidal lagoon Turbine section Port Tennant Swansea Tidal flows As the tides rise and fall the lagoon fills and empties.
Regardless of the direction of the flow, the six-metre tall turbines will generate electricity The Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon project consists of an 9km sea wall and an array of 16 dual-directional turbines, designed to harness the energy of the tide Guardian graphic Rachel Reeves, Labour MP and chair of the BEIS committee, has previously urged minister to give investors clarity on the lagoon.
“If they don’t think it can make a contribution, then they should be honest about that and explain what other measures they will take to reduce our carbon emissions,” she has said.
Privately, in letters to the Welsh government, which has offered to help on financing the lagoon, Clark said the technology was untried, with high capital costs and significant uncertainties.
The Welsh government said talks with Whitehall had been constructive but “need to get into far more detail” to reach a swift conclusion.
A spokesperson for BEIS said: “Any decision on the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon project will have to represent value for money for the UK taxpayer as well as the consumer.” Tidal Lagoon Power declined to comment.
In 2013 the federal government paid $120m for 19 farms on the Murrumbidgee river including their water rights.
There are also questions around the process by which the state government converted general access to the water into tradable water rights, which the federal government then purchased, turning the farmers that sold into instant millionaires.
It aimed to rebalance the share of water being taken from the Murray-Darling system by recovering 3,200GL for the environment a year.
Some of the funds are also being used to help farming communities adjust to and to pay for water efficiency projects, such as covering irrigations channels and removing or building infrastructure that impedes environmental flows.
As part of managing the basin, the government has created water entitlements, which can be bought and sold.
The rights can be traded in the water market and the government can also buy back entitlements for environmental flows.
There are two main types: water entitlements that give rights to an ongoing share of the total amount of water available in a river system and water allocations that are for an actual amount of water available under water access entitlements in a given season.
What are environmental water flows?
Working with the MDBA, it periodically releases water from storages along the river to mimic natural flows, water wetlands and flush the river.
The issue now before the NSW government is how to balance the environment with its aim of restoring economic activity to this part of the state.
But my friend Joe Lamp’l promises me that even I, armed with a $20 bolt cutter and some so-called livestock panels or cattle panels of wire fencing, can have a more orderly, better-looking, and better-functioning vegetable garden than ever this year.
So before all my vining crops and tomatoes are in need of support, or the seedlings are screaming to be gridded out at proper spacing and other such impeding issues, Joe suggested some proactive garden organizing, DIY-style, based on the wire panels.
So you’ve achieved a good thing as Martha would say, “It’s a good thing.” [Laughter.]
It works great but to me, for my purposes—and keep in mind I have a TV garden, too, so it has to kind of look nice during that time.
So one of my big problems is, among my many big problems [laughter], is the vining crops, I do a lot of beans, pole beans and so forth.
I kind of want something more with the grid thing going on.
I needed some protection, because I’d just gotten through planting my fall crops of all kinds of tender seedlings.
So I took those same tomato panels that I was telling you about I use for shade cloth, laid them down over all my seedlings, and then also covered them up with some additional pieces, some flat pieces that I haven’t even talked about yet ,and created a physical barrier basically.
Well no, we didn’t get through the list but just a really quickie is when you take that panel, chances are you probably don’t use the whole panel all at once.
I’ve got deer like you—well you don’t have them because of your fence—but I do and I need to protect my plants before I get them in the ground but I don’t really have a good place to store them.