Energy

This valve assembly is the aboveground portion of an injection well, which can be used to dispose of fluid deep in the subsurface. Recent studies show that the cumulative effects from injection in numerous disposal wells can contribute to seismic activity far from the injection sites. Credit: Leonid Eremeychuk/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images

High-volume fluid injection can cumulatively increase underground pore pressure and induce earthquakes in regions unexpectedly far from injection wells, recent Kansas studies show.

eos.org - by Shelby L. Peterie, Richard D. Miller, Rex Buchanan, and Brandy DeArmond - April 17, 2018

Seismologists largely attribute widespread earthquakes in southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma over the past several years to injection of extracted oil field brine deep into Earth’s crust. Recently, however, the frequency of earthquakes has increased significantly in areas of Kansas well beyond the initial high-seismicity zones near injection wells.

Energy Innovation's Michael O'Boyle and Silvio Marcacci outline the barriers to high-penetration wind and solar in the least-cost era

The following is a viewpoint from Michael O'Boyle, electricity policy manager for Energy Innovation, and Silvio Marcacci, communications director for Energy Innovation

utilitydive.com - by Michael O'Boyle, Silvio Marcacci - March 21, 2018

Wind and solar are now cheaper than virtually anyone predicted, and renewable technologies have reached an inflection point: Rapid cost declines made renewable energy the cheapest available sources of new electricity, even without subsidies, in 2017.  In many locations across America, building new wind energy projects is cheaper than running existing coal-fired power plants.

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miamiwaterkeeper.org

In the first week of March 2016, the Division of Environmental Resource Management (DERM) of Miami-Dade County released a report showing that water from the cooling canals at FPL’s nuclear power plant, located at Turkey Point, is contaminating Biscayne Bay. The canals are also contaminating the Biscayne Aquifer, which is an underground water storage area that is the sole source of drinking water for millions of South Florida residents. Hypersaline (super salty) water laden with tritium (a radioactive isotope), phosphorous, and ammonia is passing through our porous limestone geology and into our water both above and below ground.

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ALSO SEE RELATED INFORMATION WITHIN THE LINK BELOW . . .

http://southflorida.resiliencesystem.org/fpl-nuclear-plant-canals-leaking-biscayne-bay-study-confirms

Microgrid at Princeton University

utilitydive.com - March 20, 2018

The National Academy of Sciences defines “resilience” as the ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from, and more successfully adapt to adverse events.  Since the September 2017 DOE NOPR to FERC, the energy industry has been working overtime to better define resilience.  FERC unanimously set aside the “90 days on-site fuel storage” provision espoused by DOE and opened a new docket (AD18-7) to more fully examine the current state of grid resiliency, asking the nation’s seven RTO’s and ISO’s to provide their definition of resiliency relative to the bulk power system by March 9.  Those ISO/RTO comments reflected regional variances as expected while sharing a common thread of the paradigm shift underway from central station power plants to more distributed generation . . .