Deerland Peaking Station

Most of the text on this page (all, except the updates dated 2007 09 04) was originally sent out via e-mail on August 10, 2007.  The text of the e-mail was published as a letter to the editor in the Lamont Leader, 2007 08 28, p. 4

Deerland Peaking Station [North of Bruderheim]

By accident, I came across the following information:

MAXIM is proposing to construct and operate a 190 MW natural gas-fired power generation facility on a site immediately south of the existing Deerland high voltage substation in Bruderheim, Alberta. The company has obtained an option for the site and commenced a public consultation process on July 26, 2007. MAXIM anticipates that the first phase (95 MW) will be operational in 2009. The facility will use state-of-the-art combustion turbine technology.

Source: Maxim Power Corp. ("MAXIM") Announces Second Quarter 2007 Results
Marketwire, 2007 08 09

Update 2007 09 04: It appears that Maxim Power Corp. informed some residents and property owners within a 3 km radius of its proposed site for the peaking station.  However, it did not inform all residents and property owners that will be affected by the emissions the peaking station will produce.
      I own property close to the proposed Deerland peaking station and was not informed of an open house to be held by Maxim Power Corp.  There are many other residents in the neighbourhood of the proposed power station that were not been informed either.
   The emissions (including sulphur-dioxide) produced by the power station south of the Deerland substation will travel far beyond a 3 km radius and add substantially to the escalating and increasingly visible air pollution in the air-shed of the Fort Air Partnership, especially in the NW corner of Lamont County.  Acid rain, acid snow and acid fog are becoming ever more prevalent.
   I am not aware that the design of the Deerland peaking station includes a desulphurization process or whether the natural gas to be used by the station is of sufficient purity to alleviate all concerns about sulphur-dioxide.  Nevertheless, even if that should be the case, that still leaves a large amount of emissions of nitrogen-oxides to worry about.

As long as no new major power generating plants are being built in Alberta (none are in the making, except for a 1.2 GW ENMAX natural-gas-fired plant near Calgary)*, it is very profitable to cover energy-generating shortfalls through natural-gas-fired generation. That is true not only for natural-gas-fired generating plants but even more so for coal-fired generating plants and the much less costly energy generated by them, as energy produced by coal-fired generating plants can be sold at a price set through the cost of natural-gas-fired energy production.

* Update 2007 08 27: Energy Alberta announced that it intends to construct a nuclear power plant at Lac Cardinal, near Peace River.  The plant will generate 2.2 GW of electric energy, of which 70 percent will be sold to an undisclosed consumer. That will leave 660 MW to be delivered for general consumption into the Alberta transmission network.
   The Lac Cardinal power plant is scheduled to go into operation early in 2017.

The cost of nuclear power generation is cheap and comparable to that of power generated by coal-fired thermal power generating plants.

Isn't deregulation of the electric industry a great thing for energy producers and electric energy marketers?

The "letters" section of today's Edmonton Journal (Aug. 10, 2007, p. A17) has a good sampling of letters addressing the issue of wind-power generation. The letter written by Warren Frost, vice president operations and reliability, Alberta Electric Systems Operator, is the one that outlines most realistically what the implications are of large increases in wind-power generation.

....When wind suddenly ramps up or down, conventional generation such as coal, gas or hydroelectricity must be immediately dispatched or power exchanged with other provinces to offset the imbalance. There are limits to how much generation can be held in reserve, how fast it can be dispatched and how much power can be imported or exported to accommodate wind variability. Additionally, there is currently no cost-effective means of storing large amounts of power....

What that means for Alberta is that for every unit of new wind-powered energy production another unit of natural-gas-powered energy production must be constructed for standby capacity to be ready to cover shortfalls in wind-powered energy production when the wind fails. That will keep the cost of energy sold to end users high, and higher yet as the increasing scarcity of and demand for natural gas causes natural gas prices to rise ever higher.

Presently about 5 percent of Alberta's energy demand is covered through wind-powered generation. [That is just about the amount of power to be produced by the proposed peaking station.]

At any rate, the continual construction of natural-gas-fired generation capacity reduces the incentives to build coal-fired or nuclear generating plants and will keep the cost of electric energy sold to end-consumers high and rising.
   That will not change until we run out of natural gas or until the costs of natural gas become prohibitive. However, there is a solution in the making, the production of synthetic gas that will be fed into the gas distribution system (e.g.: the construction of the coal mine and coal gasification plant near Ryley and Tofield, south of Highway 14, at a cost of about $1.5 billion, financed by Shell and by the Ontario Teachers Union Pension Fund).
   And by the way, desulphurization of natural gas and of synthetic gas will produce every-increasing amounts of sulphur that need to be stored somewhere near the source of production because the world market for sulphur is glutted and cannot absorb the increasing production of sulphur.

At this year's Annual General Meeting of the Alberta Federation of Rural Electrification Associations, a representative of the Alberta Government told the audience that deregulation is working fine and as intended, and that we can expect that the retail price of electric energy will soon be in the range of 20¢ - 40¢ per kWh.

Regards,

Walter

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Update 2007 09 21:

If Maxim's proposed power station is approved, it will cause increased incidents of dense fogs during some winter days on Highways 45 and 38, in the vicinity of the Junction of Highways 45 and 38.  Those dense fogs will be extremely dangerous to traffic when they occur, especially during the morning hours when people drive to work (including school buses carrying children) and in evenings.  In fact, on some days the dense fogs will make driving on the roads in that area completely impossible; in every single winter.  Maxim's proposed project would increase the dangerous density of such fogs as well as their frequency.

The fogs caused by Maxim's proposed power plant will not only happen on account of the enormous amount of water vapour contained in the exhaust of the power plant, they will be acidic.  More acid fog and drizzle, just what we need, right?

Those problems will become compounded by the fact that the peaking power station will most likely be in operation during early morning and late evening hours, when winds are light or non-existent and fogs are most likely to happen.

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Posted 2007 09 04