Blog - Post List

  • Alternative Energy Blog: Renewable Energy and Unintended Consequences

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Douglas Morris “Because the wind blows during stormy conditions when the sun does not shine and the sun often shines on calm days with little wind, combining wind and solar can go a long way toward meeting demand, especially when geothermal provides a steady base and hydroelectric can be called on to fill in the gaps.” – Mark Z. Jacobson and Mark A Delucchi, Scientific American, November 2009 . …

  • Alternative Energy Blog: Risks and Rewards of Different Technologies in Power

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Douglas Morris “The fascination of a growing science lies in the work of the pioneers at the very borderland of the unknown, but to reach this frontier one must pass over well traveled roads; of these one of the safest and surest is the broad highway of thermodynamics.”— Gilbert Lewis (1923) With growing global concerns about reducing carbon emissions, the power industry has received its share of focus…

  • Alternative Energy Blog: Things That Might Surprise You about Power

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Douglas Morris Most often I write about a current issue concerning the industry or about how an operational problem might be addressed in a plant. I thought I’d take a different tack and highlight some interesting articles where you might learn something interesting or new (or you might just shake your head). On Animals… Imagine a situation where an animal could take down an entire country’s power grid…

  • Alternative Energy Blog: Improving Power Plant Operations with Second-Level Automation

    Jim Cahill
    When many plants were built years ago, they were instrumented to provide what was required for safely manage the process. As time has passed, the requirements are far greater for efficiency, reliability and regulatory demands. In a Power Engineering International article, Modernizing old plants to meet new demands , Emerson’s Jonas Berge describes how power plants are being modernized with a second layer of automation…

  • Alternative Energy Blog: Improving Heat Rate with Better Measurements

    Jim Cahill
    For electrical power producers, the phrase “heat rate” refers to the efficiency of the power plant. It is defined as the thermal energy in divided by the electrical energy out. Emerson’s Lydia Miller let me know about a new whitepaper, Using Automation to Improve Plant Heat Rate that highlights ways to improve the efficiency of this conversion from thermal to electrical energy. The whitepaper opens by describing what…

  • Alternative Energy Blog: New Power Plant Technology-Is it Commercially Viable?

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Douglas Morris This past week, researchers at MIT were published in MIT News about a new approach to monetizing coal for power plants by combining coal gasification with fuel cell technology. By dovetailing these two systems, the research states that efficiencies could approach 60 percent, nearing those achieved in modern combined cycle plants. And, like combined cycle plants, this technology yields about…

  • Alternative Energy Blog: Mexico’s Energy Reforms Promise a More Competitive and Efficient Power Industry

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Juan Carlos Bravo In August 2013, the Mexico government passed a new Energy reform, which one of its main objectives is to strengthen the competitiveness in the generation of power, accelerate the expansion of transmission networks, improve distribution supply quality, and offer the end consumer a wider range of opportunities to meet their consumption needs at more competitive prices. The intention is that…

  • Alternative Energy Blog: Pervasive Sensing: Looking Beyond the Process in Power Plants

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Douglas Morris Back in the 1990s, the Robert Redford film “Sneakers” was a story about cryptography, hackers, and a government plot. It’s not an Oscar-worthy movie, but it was interesting back in the day. Anyway, during one of the final scenes, Ben Kingsley’s character, Cosmo, makes a prescient statement to the effect that the world is run by ones and zeros and power goes to those who control the information…

  • Power Blog: Renewables Growing Faster than Expected

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Juan Carlos Bravo As we have been reporting in this blog, the energy scenario is changing. In fact, it might be changing faster than anyone expected due the low oil prices. As reported by the World Energy Outlook 2015 , “renewables contributed almost half of the world’s new power generation capacity in 2014 and have already become the second-largest source of electricity (after coal).” Source: Twitter.com…

  • Alternative Energy Blog: Renewables Growing Faster than Expected

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Juan Carlos Bravo As we have been reporting in this blog, the energy scenario is changing. In fact, it might be changing faster than anyone expected due the low oil prices. As reported by the World Energy Outlook 2015 , “renewables contributed almost half of the world’s new power generation capacity in 2014 and have already become the second-largest source of electricity (after coal).” Source: Twitter.com…

  • Power Blog: Grid Complexities and the Race for Energy Storage

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Douglas Morris Apple just announced that they plan to construct a 200MW solar project in China to help the company meet its goals for carbon neutrality. One to the concerns, though, is whether or not the local transmission & distribution grid system can accommodate this renewable generation. It’s a concern because there have been numerous solar installations in China that are idled because of grid limitations…

  • Alternative Energy Blog: Grid Complexities and the Race for Energy Storage

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Douglas Morris Apple just announced that they plan to construct a 200MW solar project in China to help the company meet its goals for carbon neutrality. One to the concerns, though, is whether or not the local transmission & distribution grid system can accommodate this renewable generation. It’s a concern because there have been numerous solar installations in China that are idled because of grid limitations…

  • Power Blog: How the Sun Affects Your Utility Bill

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Douglas Morris Catalina Island is home to many attractions including theaters, casinos, and Hollywood stars. It’s also home to a self-contained utility system called a microgrid, which is a mini version of the electrical grid supplying your home or place of work. Emerson is helping with this system so that it can properly manage all the power inputs and outputs required to control this complex electrical grid…

  • Alternative Energy Blog: How the Sun Affects Your Utility Bill

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Douglas Morris Catalina Island is home to many attractions including theaters, casinos, and Hollywood stars. It’s also home to a self-contained utility system called a microgrid, which is a mini version of the electrical grid supplying your home or place of work. Emerson is helping with this system so that it can properly manage all the power inputs and outputs required to control this complex electrical grid…

  • Alternative Energy Blog: Optimal Operation of Coal Plant Ash Hoppers

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Douglas Morris One of the byproducts of a coal plant is fly ash, which is cleaned from flue gas before it reaches the stack in a plant. Most often, this ash is removed using an electrostatic precipitator or ESP. Since this is substance that doesn’t reliably flow out of a collection bin or silo, operating the system can be problematic and the consequences of poor operation are many. An article in Power Engineering…

  • Alternative Energy Blog: Regulations and Coal-Fired Power Plants

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Dennis Tkacs By Wknight94 talk (Own work) [ GFDL or CC BY-SA 3.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons At the end of 2011, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a rule to regulate mercury and other pollutants from coal and oil fired power plants. Last month, this Mercury and Air Toxics Standard or MATS was dealt a setback by a Supreme Court ruling . The Supreme Court ruled that the EPA erred in not…

  • Alternative Energy Blog: Improving Plant Heat Rate with Better Heater Level Measurement

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Douglas Morris Improving heat rate is something that most power generators consistently look to do because it translates directly into lower fuel costs. In India, there are government legislated heat rate targets for plants where financial penalties or rewards are available depending on which side of the equation a plant lands. As most know, there are many ways to go about improving heat rate. These range…

  • Alternative Energy Blog: Reliability–A Strategy for Power Generators

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Douglas Morris Where it is installed, renewable generation is altering the operating landscape for power producers. Wind and solar assets are typically placed into the power grid whenever they are available, but since they are intermittent, formerly base loaded power plants are cycled in order to balance the grid. Unfortunately, many plants were not designed to operate like this and the increased amount…

  • Alternative Energy Blog: Safely Monitoring Gas Turbines for Leaks

    Jim Cahill
    The post Safely Monitoring Gas Turbines for Leaks appeared first on the Emerson Process Experts blog. Douglas Morris Director of Marketing, Mining & Power Industries Author: Douglas Morris Everyone knows that gas generation is becoming more and more common for baseload power. It’s a proven, reliable, and less carbon intensive fossil technology for generating electricity. Plants that use it are also subject to some…

  • Alternative Energy Blog: Power-Gen International—Heightening Plant and Fleet Readiness

    Jim Cahill
    If you’re in the power generation industry and attending (or considering attending) next week’s Power-Gen International conference in Orlando, Florida USA, make sure to connect with the Emerson team in Booth 1849 . They are ready to listen to the challenges you face and offer ways to heighten your plant and fleet readiness to help improve availability and gain more efficiency from your operations and workforce. Register…

  • Alternative Energy Blog: Power Plant Monitoring

    Jim Cahill
    Douglas Morris Director of Marketing, Mining & Power Industries Author: Douglas Morris Wireless measurement devices are nothing new and installations are in just about every industry, including power. From my experience, power plants don’t choose to use wireless technologies to replace wired devices, rather they are used to solve some of those monitoring applications where the cost of laying copper is simply too expensive…

  • Alternative Energy Blog: Critical Infrastructure and Cybersecurity

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Dennis Tkacs Not a day goes by without mention of a new cybersecurity incident, the hack of a prominent organization’s website, a new security threat, or an attack that compromises consumer financial information. US based retailers Target...

  • Alternative Energy Blog: Critical Infrastructure and Cybersecurity

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Dennis Tkacs Not a day goes by without mention of a new cybersecurity incident, the hack of a prominent organization’s website, a new security threat, or an attack that compromises consumer financial information. US based retailers Target and Home Depot are recent examples of companies befallen by cyber-attacks. The number of malicious files is staggering; Kaspersky Labs, a leading security software firm…

  • Alternative Energy Blog: Improving Reliability in Power Generation: A Competitive Advantage

    Jim Cahill
    Douglas Morris Director of Marketing, Mining & Power Industries Author: Douglas Morris Recently, the consulting arm of Black & Veatch published its annual strategic directions report for the US utility industry. In 2014 “reliability” was again identified...

  • Alternative Energy Blog: Improving Reliability in Power Generation: A Competitive Advantage

    Jim Cahill
    Douglas Morris Director of Marketing, Mining & Power Industries Author: Douglas Morris Recently, the consulting arm of Black & Veatch published its annual strategic directions report for the US utility industry. In 2014 “reliability” was again identified as the top industry concern. This report discusses how technology will play an important role for utilities as they look to improve upon asset reliability. The…

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