Hydropower at Lower Sunshine Dam Feasibility

The Greybull Valley irrigation district located in northern Wyoming is a small community of people who are in control of the irrigated water for the valley.  The Greybull valley is located in northern Wyoming in a rural area where people are not real impressed by new projects that cost $9 million dollars. According to a Greybull Valley Irrigation District Feasibility Study done in 2008, the costs of a new hydroelectric facility are shown below.

Cost Items                                                                                Project Cost                                                                 

             
Licensing                                                                                     $200,000
Legal Fees                                                                                   $250,000
Power house (Const. cost)  
                - Building (Includes Turbine)                                        $6,000,000 

                -Turbine upgrade                                                         $1,000,000
 First Yr. O/M                                                                             $45,000
Transmission Lines                                                                     $1,100,000

Design (Engineering Fees)                                                            $600,000
Project Total:                                                      $9,195,000

Electric power is sold in kilowatts per hour (kwh). The secret to making as much money as possible for a particular facility is to sell as much power as possible.  The efficiency of the turbine, generator and pumps all play into how much power that can be produced.  The equation for producing power is shown below.

Power = (Flow Rate)*(Water Head)*(Unit Weight of Water)

The Lower Sunshine Dam provides 140 feet of total head and a maximum flow rate of 422 cubic feet per second.  The power output will be around 13,502,659 kWh/year and will have an annual income of about $706,000 per year. After the cost of operation and maintenance the project will yield over $200,000 per year which will make the project feasible to the Greybull Valley Irrigation District. 

American Clean Energy and Security Act

Green energy will become more and more important as oil resources decrease.  According to new economic analysis, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) will only cost the average household about the price of a postage stamp, a small price for the preservation of our planet. The idea that more Jobs will be created, less global warming pollution produced, and greater security for such a small price.

Renewable energy accounts for approximately 10% of the electrical power produced in the United States.   With the ACES in place that number is projected to increase to about 15% by 2020. The safety of American people is increased when more power is produced on American soil.  If a disaster was to take place at an oil refining facility overseas, the U.S. would suffer greatly.  It would benefit the American people to have more control of power production that is within our borders. 

One of the driving forces behind the ACES is the fact that thousands of jobs will be created. With the struggling job market that we have today, the idea of creating more jobs while helping the environment is hard to ignore.

The American Clean Energy and Security Act is a way to provide jobs for thousands of American while increasing national security. While being safe and having more jobs is great, the environment is the biggest winner with the ACEs. 

The link for the policy overview is:  http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/cap2.0/files/bargain.pdf

Smaller is Better

When a hydroelectric power facility is designed, acquiring the environmental impacts statements and licensing can be very tedious.  Most hydroelectric facilities are extremely big and loud which causes many environmental problems.  If a facility can be built that is a fraction of the size with the same power output it would save large amounts of materials, resources and money.

                With the prices of nearly everything in the world on a continual rise, innovative and efficient designs of hydroelectric facilities are taking the world by storm.  Before a facility can be built the engineer has to acquire environmental impacts statements and licensing.  For example, the Grey Bull hydroelectric facilities preliminary cost estimate for environment impacts and licensing was about $450,000.  For small projects like the Grey Bull facility, an upfront cost of nearly half a million would make the project unfeasible.  The time and money saved by incorporating a smaller facility would benefit everybody involved with the project.

                The size of the projects footprint on the environment is another important issue to consider.  Smaller projects require less materials, workers, maintenance and land.  Materials that are used to build a hydroelectric facility are energy intensive.  Cement, steel, wood and many other materials take large amounts of power to create and transport to the project location.  If fewer materials are needed then the environment is benefiting.   

The article below from science daily, talks about the development of smaller hydroelectric facilities.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101020101650.htm

What?!?! People will pay more green energy!

            Many people are becoming more and more concerned about the future of non-renewable resources.  Finally, people are thinking in the long run about the availability and future prices of non-renewable resource like oil.   

According to a poll done by WorldPublicOpinion.org (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44775), 77% of the people in the world agree that policy makers should require utilities to invest more money into developing green energy sources.  The twist on the national average of people that agreed on “green” energy sources was the countries that export oil.  Countries like Russia, Azerbaijan and Indonesia are more critical of alternative energy methods than countries that import oil and therefore pay ridiculously high prices for the oil.  Clearly their “green” judgment is affected by the huge amounts of profit that are being accumulated.

All the ideas of a more environmentally friendly ways of producing energy are great ways to get people thinking green, but are they realistic?  Wyoming is not a place that most people would associate with alternative energy methods.  In fact Wyoming is the perfect place to produce “green” power.  The in-state wind energy potential for Wyoming is about 545 billion kWh per year.  With a national average of about 12 cents per kWh, that is over $65 billion in possible revenue per year.  That $65 billion would be much appreciated once the large coal mines start to disappear. 

Another alternative source of energy that is produced in Wyoming is hydroelectricity.  Along with the 12 dams that already produce about 875 mWh, there are another 17 dams in Wyoming that have the potential to produce large amount of hydro electric energy.  The Grey Bull Valley Irrigation District understands the need for alternative energy methods and the hydroelectric power facility at Lower Sunshine is a great location.  The thought that people are willing to pay more for green energy is a great incentive to construct facilities like the one being proposed near Grey Bull.  The project may suddenly be feasible if people understand the need for the environmentally friendly energy source.