[Editor note: The following post, “Cap-and-Trade: The Temple of Enron,” appeared one year ago in MasterResource. It is being reprinted in conjunction with the release of the outlines of the Senate energy/climate proposal. Robert Bradley, formerly with Enron, further documents Enron’s cap-and-trade shenanigans in other MasterResource articles listed at the end of this post. Two press releases from the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Institute for Energy Research on the Senate outline are reproduced as well.]
… Continue Reading“Since 1976, Enron [and predecessor company] employees have been at the forefront of developing air credit trading policies for governments and businesses…. Enron today is the largest and most sophisticated air emissions credit and allowance trading organization in the United States. Since 1990, Enron has participated in over 80 SOx allowance transactions and has also been active in establishing policies for trading NOx in the United States and carbon [dioxide] world-wide.”
Editor’s note: This is Part III of a five part series that provides an essential basis for the understanding of energy transitions and use. The previous posts in this series can be seen at:
Part I – Definitions
Part II – Coal- and Wood-Fired Electricity Generation
Boilers of electricity-generating stations burning coal can be converted to burn liquid or gaseous hydrocarbons (fuel oil, even crude oil, and natural gas) and such conversions were fairly common during the 1960s and the early 1970s. Burning natural gas rather than coal has clear environmental advantages (it generates less, or no, sulfur dioxide and no fly ash) but the overall conversion efficiency of the boiler-steam turbogenerator unit changes little. In contrast, gas turbines, particularly when coupled with steam turbines, offer the most efficient way of electricity generation.…
Continue ReadingEditor’s note: This is Part II of a five part series that provides an essential basis for the understanding of energy transitions and use. The opening post on definitions was yesterday.
Baseline calculations for modern electricity generation reflect the most important mode of the U.S. electricity generation, coal combustion in modern large coal-fired stations, which produced nearly 45% of the total in 2009. As there is no such thing as a standard coal-fired station I will calculate two very realistic but substantially different densities resulting from disparities in coal quality, fuel delivery and power plant operation. The highest power density would be associated with a large (in this example I will assume installed generating capacity of 1 GWe) mine-mouth power plant (supplied by high-capacity conveyors or short-haul trucking directly from the mine and not requiring any coal-storage yard), burning sub-bituminous coal (energy density of 20 GJ/t, ash content less than 5%, sulfur content below 0.5%), sited in a proximity of a major river (able to use once-through cooling and hence without any large cooling towers) that would operate with a high capacity factor (80%) and with a high conversion efficiency (38%).…
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