- PROPOSED -- CENTRAL PEOPLES POWER Serving the Greater Central Willamette Valley people with locally generated green power By Jim Miller November 9, 2008
OVERVIEW Central Willamette Valley Peoples Utility District, dba Central Peoples Power, will become the pre-eminent model for a locavore source of energy, initially electric energy, and eventually, all forms of energy. Its holistic approach includes local financing and redirecting, as much as possible, all spending to: (a) First within the District, (b) secondly, within Oregon, and (c within the United States. CWVPUD will be a political subdivision of the State of Oregon and thus no part of its net income is taxable. Its real and personal property will remain taxable as if it were a private corporation, thus ensuring that it pays its fair share in support of local schools, city, county and fire district operations. The District will attain a high level of generating capacity using local fuels and will control its distribution of energy. A good start would be in the heavily forested areas of the northwest. The technology is here, up and running and affordable. We can start as did Ukiah, CA with the BioTen electric plant. See: BIOTEN Plant is Moving West' http://www.bioenergyupdate.com/magazine/security/Bioenergy%20Update%2007-04/bioenergy_update_July_2004.htm In Oregon, I'm exploring the law and merits of using the Peoples Utility District Law. This plan is in the first draft stage. Let me know if you want in on this planning and I'll add you to my wikiweb. The purpose of CWVPUD is to create large number of small size genset using syngas from woody matrials and giant grasses, then create a MESH connection and distribution system, mostly on a local basis. We can rent transmission ln capacity. PUD's can issue both revenue and GO bonds for creating and distributing electricity. Same for domestic water. If you folks will join with me in getting this PUD up and running, then we can replicate it in all of the western states if not across the nation. 2. DISTRICT ORGANIZATION The district will be formed pursuant to the Oregon Constitution, Article XI, Section 10, Oregon Revised Statues,Title 46, Chapter 261, and implementing administrative regulations. The territory will be all of the remaining territory in Benton, Line, Lane, Polk, Marion and Lincoln outside the service areas of Consumers Power, Inc., a private, investor/member owned cooperative. The map of CPI's highly fragmented territory is at: http://www.cpi.coop/about/cpi_aboutus_svcarea.jpg At this point, it is unclear how much of the CPI territory is actually served by CPI owned facilities and how much on contract by other utilities. Pacific Power and Light presently serves the areas which CWVPUD would take over once formed. A gradual, phased-in takeover would seem prudent, mainly because of the unfavorable bond market. We need to find out why Corvallis, Albany, Lebanon and Sweetwater were not included in CPI's territory. There is nothing to prevent CWVPUD from offering service outside its district boundaries. CPI would not have exclusive rights to serve its territory. If it owns transmission facilities in their territory, that would seem to enable them to dominate those areas. Our objective is to co-locate our generating plants in many different locations with energy intensive companies and generate electricity excess to the needs of the company for mostly local distribution. Again, federal law will require CPI and other utilities to transmit power to our customers, wherever located, even if outside our district boundaries. Thus our district could overlap the service territory of CPI and any other utility. Since nearly all of our energy will be “Green”, we can probably make out overlap work. Since are not energy resellers, but prime producers, our margins will allow us to sell green energy at par with fossil energy. Such will give us a greater reach than just our district. FINANCING Oregon law permits CWVPUD to sell revenue bonds to raise money for capital and start-up costs. The CPP will also have the right to levy a tax on the district. If we propose a tax levy along with the formation, it would increase the risk of a “NO” vote. So we need some bridge financing, probably from a private group as a loan or a government grant. Once formed, getting revenue bonds approved which do not involve any property tax levies, will probably be doable. We should begin by creating our electrical generating capacity using the BIOTEN syngas, diesel-electric generators. As a public entity we will probably be able to get used, large generators from GSA as the Iraq war winds down. We can provide our customers over the Pacific Corp transmission facilities. We can phase in the purchase of sections of our transmission facilities on a local basis. Instead of having one huge, monstrous, complex distribution system, we will have a series of small modules with a few connection points to the next unit – a “MESH” system, similar to IT Mesh network technologies which are now emerging. POWER GENERATING LOCATIONS As stated above, we aspire to become a “locavore” energy generating company. We will be vertically integrated from raw materials to delivery of consumer energy. We will endeavor to keep all of out purchases as local as possible. These policies will tend to distribute the locations of power generations. It will also “right size” the power yields from our generators. Most likely, this will require a wide range of types of power generation. We will be open all forms of energy generation, including biomass-to-ethanol, syngas with biochar, wind, solar, wave, geothermal, algal oil-to-biodiesel, and as yet undiscovered sources of energy. With these policies in mind, our initial choices are: Sawmills. Sawmills are consumers of large amounts of energy. They are also large producers of waste wood which is good for direct combustion, syngas and biochar, and compost wood wastes. Sawmills have the potential of being a new exporter of energy. Dairy. Dairy operations also consumes large amounts of energy. It produces cow flop which is a source of syngas and biochar as well as methane. Like sawmills, dairies have the potential of producing excess energy. Lumber yards have inputs and also can logically produce net energy. Biological waste. Waste which have cellulose content will have value for energy production. The cost of collection and transportation may wash away net energy for sale. 5 TECHNOLOGY General. Many of the energy production plants will be purchased and used by industry. Our push is to provide the technology to private industry which hopefully will produce surplus energy which can be sold by the industry to another customer in which case our role will be that of transfer for a fee. We need to facilitate this “small producer” to “small customer” since it reduces our capital costs, creates a more distributed generating capacity and potentially provides us with additional backup potential. Direct combustion. Most direct combustion systems produce steam for a steam turbine generator. The inlet-compression fan takes about 50% of the horsepower generated by the turbine. Otherwise, the system is popular, well understood, has many vendors and produces a great deal of the nation's electricity. Wood, coal, gas, oil and geothermal are common inputs. Direct combustion wastes extreme amounts of heat and contribute substantially (except for geothermal) to GHG. See: BIOTEN Plant is Moving West' http://www.bioenergyupdate.com/magazine/security/Bioenergy%20Update%2007-04/bioenergy_update_July_2004.htm Wind. Wind has much potential in eastern Oregon, but not in Willamette Valley. Solar. Solar has much potential in eastern and southern Oregon, but not in the western part of the state. Geothermal. No geothermal or little geothermal exists in the proposed district territories. Coal. No comment. Atomic. No comment. Pyrolysis. Syngas and its co-product, biochar, offers great potential, primarily because it can use a wide range of inputs and in just about any combination: wood chips, giant grass, consumer paper and cardboard, construction waste, straw, and timber slash. One great potential for Syngas is that the reactors can be mounted on a trailer and taken to the source of the input. Transporting wood chips to the plant is much more costly than transporting the syngas (producer gas or producer oil) from the pile of chips to the consumer or next level of refining. The savings is tremendous and competitive as against a coal-fired plant or a hydro-eclectic plant which can lose up to 50% or more of the energy during transmission. See: http://algaloildiesel.wetpaint.com/page/SYNGAS+AND+BIOCHAR Hydro-electric. A combination of hydro-electric with other generators, especially wind, could produce considerable savings in generating capacity. To the extent that wind generated electric energy can be stored in large water reservoirs at high elevations (1000 feet plus), then the amount of generating capacity can be reduce, thus savings on both capital costs and operational costs. There would be some possibility that wind energy could be harvested in eastern Oregon, stored in place and then when load demands are high (and energy prices are high), the stored water can then be used to generate salable electric power. The cost of transmission and transmission losses would have to be considered if the location is distant from the CCP market. Alternatively, a local reservoir could store water pumped uphill by electric pumps powered by syngas diesel electric generators. 6. COSTS District organizational costs Capital costs Start-up costs Operational costs Bond costs 7. REGULATORY MATTERS 8. POLITICS AND REALITY Those who control the majority of renewable energy sources will dominate our lives -- economic, political, cultural ... you name it. The Seven Sisters are putting millions/billions into renewable energy in hopes of getting as much patent protection as possible so they can hammer small energy firms into the ground or buy-up competing technology to kill it. Chevron did this with a superior battery used by GM in the EVA 1 and EVA 2 cars before they killed them. We need to develop our defenses to the Seven Sisters plan which is: Create as many public utility districts as possible and then sell revenue bonds to build locavore power production units. A good start would be in the heavily forested areas of the northwest. The technology is here, up and running and affordable. We can start as did Ukiah, CA with the BioTen electric plant. See: BIOTEN Plant is Moving West' http://www.bioenergyupdate.com/magazine/security/Bioenergy%20Update%2007-04/bioenergy_update_July_2004.htm In Oregon, I'm exploring the law and merits of using the Peoples Utility District Law. I am doing a plan for the CENTRAL WILLAMETTE VALLEY PEOPLES UTILITY DISTRICT. The plan is in the first draft stage. Let me know if you want in on this planning and I'll add you to my wikiweb. The purpose of CWVPUD is to create large number of small size genset using syngas from woody matrials and giant grasses, then create a MESH connection and distribution system, mostly on a local basis. We can rent transmission ln capacity. PUD's can issue both revenue and GO bonds for creating and distributing electricity. Same for domestic water. If you folks will join with me in getting this PUD up and running, then we can replicate it in all of the western states if not across the nation. By having thousands of these in-place, the Seven Sisters and the massive electric industy cannot touch us. If we can get electric cars built,, we can then take on the auto industry which is wedded to the ICE and either kill GM, Ford and Chrysler or, better, force one or more of them to build and sell EVA's. Thus we will control our own future and not let the Oil and Auto industries and their banker friends control our lives. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
