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Duke Estimates Coal-Ash Cleanup at $2 Billion to $2.5 Billion

A Duke Energy Corp. executive told a North Carolina environmental commission that plans outlined by the utility to address coal-ash in the state are estimated to cost about $2 billion to $2.5 billion. Duke efforts to address coal ash in the state comes after a metal pipe running underneath a waste-storage pond owned by Duke Energy burst in early February, pouring as much as 39,000 tons of coal ash—the byproduct of burning coal for fuel—into the adjacent Dan River. "Duke Energy is committed to working with policymakers and regulators to implement both short- and long-term solutions to coal ash management in North Carolina," said Paul Newton, Duke’s North Carolina president. He spoke Tuesday before the state’s joint environmental review commission. Mr. Newton said the plans Duke has outlined include excavating and relocating ash from company sites to a "lined structural" or lined landfill, as well as costs to convert […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Desalination Plant to Provide Third of Beijing’s Water

One-third of the tap water used in Beijing in five years will be desalinated from the sea to make it potable and boost clean supplies, according to state media. Beijing Enterprises (371) Water Group, the biggest publicly traded water-treatment company in China, is developing the reverse-osmosis project in the Caofeidian district of Tangshan in Hebei province , the Global Times reported . The city will get about 33 percent of its water daily from the treatment facility. The company said it’s planning to spend 7 billion yuan ($1.1 billion) on the plant and 10 billion yuan more on a pipeline to transport the water. Beijing Enterprises Water started desalinating seawater in 2012. Beijing has been battling drought for 15 years as China works to clean its water and air of pollutants. Xinhua News Agency reported April 12 that investigators traced the source of an oil pipeline leak that contaminated […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Tap water company denies pollution cover-up

The tap water supplier at the center of a scandal after excessive levels of a carcinogenic compound were found in its samples has denied a cover-up of the contamination. Excessive levels of benzene in the water affected more than 2.4 million people in Lanzhou, capital of northwest China’s Gansu Province, provincial authorities said on Friday. The supplier, the Lanzhou Veolia Water Company, collected water samples on April 2 and found abnormal levels of benzene during analysis on Thursday, said Yan Xiaotao, deputy general manager of the Sino-French joint venture. The excess of benzene was confirmed by further tests at 3 p.m. on Thursday and the company reported the situation to the Lanzhou municipal government at 5 a.m. Friday, Yan said. There was no […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Excessive benzene found in NW China tap water

Tap water in downtown Lanzhou has been found to contain excessive levels of benzene, provincial authorities said on Friday. Tests carried out in the early hours of Friday showed that tap water contained 200 micrograms of benzene per liter, far exceeding the national limit of 10 micrograms per liter, according to the city’s environmental protection office. (Xinhua/Guo Gang) LANZHOU, April 11 (Xinhua) — More than 2.4 million people in downtown Lanzhou, northwest China’s Gansu Province, have been affected by tap water found to contain excessive levels of benzene, provincial authorities said on Friday. Tests carried out in the early hours of Friday showed that local tap water contained 200 micrograms of benzene per liter, far exceeding the national limit of 10 micrograms per liter, according to the city’s environmental protection office. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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California’s big dry shows little let-up

California’s record-setting drought is touching the heart of Silicon Valley . With the rainy season ending with hardly any rain to show for it, the city of Mountain View, home to tech giant Google, declared last week a water shortage emergency. In the tech-heavy city, the impact of the emergency declaration is light. Restaurants, for example, cannot serve water except upon request. Drive or fly just a few hours inland from Apple’s home town in Cupertino, however, and the impact of the drought hitting the US’s most populous state and biggest agricultural industry is far more menacing. For a brief moment in February and March, light rains fell, giving grape growers in Napa Valley, lettuce farmers near Salinas and suburban and rural homeowners a glimmer of hope for an end to a drought now entering […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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On oil-water nexus

In addition to the conventional energy market issues, mainly oil, related to price and production, the industry seems to be gearing for a new worry — how to handle the oil-water nexus. A recent UN Water Day has a very simple message to deliver: Water needs energy and energy needs water. The interdependencies between the two is strengthened and consolidated by the day. After all some 90 percent of power generation is water-intensive. Using various parameters to look into the crystal ball, the world seems to be heading toward increasing its energy consumption by more than a third in only two decades. Such increase requires an additional increase of 85 percent of water consumption according the consumers’ watch dog, the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA). With such increase comes completion for supplies as the world population will top 9 billion people, who need an additional 50 percent in agricultural […]

Posted On : Published By : ASPO-USA
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3 Surprising Sources of Oil Pollution in the Ocean

  The Texas spill is obvious, but automobile oil is a bigger contributor. An iridescent sheen spreads from a drop of crude oil on top of the water in the Gulf of Mexico. Obvious oil spills, like the 168,000 gallons (635,000 liters) of oil that leaked into Galveston Bay on Saturday, usually make national news, accompanied by pictures of oil-blackened wildlife . But such publicized events account for only a small part of the total amount of oil pollution in the oceans—and many of the other sources, such as automobile oil, go largely unnoticed, scientists say. In fact, of the tens of millions of gallons of oil that enter North American oceans each year due to human activities, only 8 percent comes from tanker or oil pipeline spills, according to the 2003 book Oil in the Sea III by the U.S. National Research Council of the National Academy of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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World energy use threatens water

Rising demand for energy, from biofuels to shale gas, is a threat to freshwater supplies, according to a United Nations report released Friday. The report urged energy companies to do more to limit their use of water in everything from cooling coal-fired power plants to irrigation for crops grown to produce biofuels. “Demand for energy and freshwater will increase significantly in the coming decades,” U.N. agencies said in the World Water Development Report. “This increase will present big challenges and strain resources in nearly all regions.” By 2030, the world will need 40 percent more water and 50 percent more energy than now, the report said. Water is under pressure from factors such as a rising population, pollution and droughts, floods and heat waves linked to global warming. Around the world, about 770 million of the world’s 7 billion people now lack access to safe drinking water, it said. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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North Carolina regulators cite Duke Energy for dumping coal ash

Environmental regulators in North Carolina have cited the country’s largest energy company for dumping millions of gallons of wastewater from coal ash ponds into a public waterway. The company could face $2.75 million in fines if the allegations are confirmed. The citations issued Thursday concern two coal ash ponds near the Cape Fear River,  where regulators allege Duke Energy  pumped the wastewater into a public canal, violating its environmental permit. Coal ash is a byproduct of burning coal and contains high levels of toxic arsenic. In a statement to Al Jazeera on Wednesday, the company said the water pumped was within the limits of its permit and necessary to perform routine maintenance. “Our permit authorizes this type of maintenance specifically under the condition that we meet permit limits,” Duke Energy told Al Jazeera. “The water was being pumped to the existing, permitted outfalls.” However, Tom Reeder, director of North […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Coal ash still contaminating NC river, but state response lags

A new leak again raised concerns about water contaminated with coal ash flowing into the Dan River on the border of North Carolina and Virginia. The second leak of arsenic-tainted water comes from the same pond where earlier this month at least 82,000 tons of ash mixed with 27 million gallons of contaminated water — which had been stored in an unlined pond at a decommissioned Duke Energy plant in Eden, N.C. — escaped through a damaged storm drain into the river. The spill caused concerns about the water quality for residents who rely on the Dan River for drinking water, and prompted fierce reactions from environmental watchdog groups that said the spill was indicative of too-lax regulations for coal ash. The newly discovered leakage of arsenic-tainted water, made public by Duke Energy and the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) on Tuesday, comes from a […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple