The Oil Drum

Although the days are still relatively hot and the sun high in the sky, this summer is coming to an end. The order has gone in for the wood that will help us heat the house this winter, and the students have arrived for a new semester. Which means, a little late as usual, it is time to dust off the lecture notes (which now-a-days come as Powerpoint presentations), and start the annual update.

One of the classes that I teach deals with power, both generation and use, and so I start the semester with a review of where I see that we currently stand as an overview before getting into more mundane details, such as the inner workings of a generator. The spacing of a year between using these particular slides also gives a little perspective on how things have changed, and updating individual slides emphasizes where the most significant changes have been, in my opinion. So let me show you the slides I am adding or changing, and explain, relatively briefly, why.

This is a picture of ConEd's Waterside powerplant, which is under demolition on the superblock bounded by 38th and 41st Streets, First Avenue and the FDR Drive. ConEd sold the site to a residential real estate developer and is using some of the revenue from the land sale to expand capacity at its plant a mile downtown at 14th Street and the FDR Drive.

While the 14th Street plant is expanded, other new power plants will remain on the drawing boards for at least four years longer than previously planned.

The mayor's energy task force, which last month was being chided for losing enthusiasm, has proposed delaying the construction of a new power plant for four years and focusing instead on reducing demand by encouraging "green buildings" and -- here is a novel idea -- by paying people to avoid using energy during peak load times. (I.e., if you can go without A/C on the hottest days of the year, you'll be paid for your trouble.) "Officials expect the program to save the equivalent of what a large power plant could generate," the Times reports.