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......against hurricanes, abundant wildlife, provision of drinking...against hurricanes, abundant wildlife, provision of drinking...traditional and renewable energy sources; promotion of...comprehensive national energy policy. The vision of......
Because of concerns with the growing threat of global climate change from increasing emissions of greenhouse gases, the United States and other countries are implementing, by themselves or in cooperation with one or more other nations, climate change mitigation projects. These projects will reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or sequester carbon, and will also result in non-GHG benefits (i.e., environmental, economic, and social benefits). Monitoring, evaluating, reporting, and verifying (MERV) guidelines are needed for these projects to accurately determine their net GHG, and other, benefits. Implementation of MERV guidelines is also intended to: (1) increase the reliability of data for estimating GHG benefits;...
Ecological evaluation is essential for remediation, restoration, and Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA), and forms the basis for many management practices. These include determining status and trends of biological, physical, or chemical/radiological conditions, conducting environmental impact assessments, performing remedial actions should remediation fail, managing ecosystems and wildlife, and assessing the efficacy of remediation, restoration, and long-term stewardship. The objective of this paper is to explore the meanings of these assessments, examine the relationships among them, and suggest methods of integration that will move environmental management forward. While remediation, restoration, and NRDA,...
As wind power development continues at a rapid pace in the United States, there is increasing interest in its economic impacts. Because good wind resources are typically far from electrical loads, wind power plants are often built in rural areas. The economic impacts that arise from building and operating a power plant can be significant but are often not considered by public utility commission processes. Although these impacts vary from state to state because of the differences in wind resource and state infrastructure, economic development from new wind provides important impacts from necessary power system expansion and should play a more prominent role in decision-making processes. This paper uses the National...
Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the US Department of Energy (DOE) have been funding a number of case studies under the initiative entitled “Economic Development through Biomass Systems Integration”, with the objective of investigate the feasibility of integrated biomass energy systems, utilizing a dedicated feedstock supply system (DFSS) for energy production. This paper deals with the full fuel cycle for four of these case studies. which have been examined with regard to the emissions of carbon dioxide, COZ. Although the conversion of biomass to electricity in itself does not emit more CO1 than is captured by the biomass through photosynthesis, there will be some CO1 emissions from the DFSS. External...
For comparing impacts of bird and bat collisions with wind turbines, investigators estimate fatalities/megawatt (MW) of rated capacity/year, based on periodic carcass searches and trials used to estimate carcasses not found due to scavenger removal and searcher error. However, scavenger trials typically place >=10 carcasses at once within small areas already supplying scavengers with carcasses deposited by wind turbines, so scavengers may be unable to process and remove all placed carcasses. To avoid scavenger swamping, which might bias fatality estimates low, we placed only 1-5 bird carcasses at a time amongst 52 wind turbines in our 249.7-ha study area, each carcass monitored by a motion-activated camera. Scavengers...
We have conducted a detailed analysis of costs associated with today’s technology for CO2 separation and capture at three types of power plants: integrated coal gasification combined cycles (IGCC), pulverized coal-fired simple cycles (PC), and natural gas-fired combined cycles (NGCC). The analysis was based on studies from the literature that analyzed the economics of capturing CO2 emitted at power plants. In this paper, we present a composite cost model and perform a sensitivity analysis to identify the cost-drivers for capture. We conclude that with new developments, CO2 capture and sequestration can become a cost-effective mitigation pathway.
We have conducted a detailed analysis of costs associated with today’s technology for CO2 separation and capture at three types of power plants: integrated coal gasification combined cycles (IGCC), pulverized coal-fired simple cycles (PC), and natural gas-fired combined cycles (NGCC). The analysis was based on studies from the literature that analyzed the economics of capturing CO2 emitted at power plants. In this paper, we present a composite cost model and perform a sensitivity analysis to identify the cost-drivers for capture. We conclude that with new developments, CO2 capture and sequestration can become a cost-effective mitigation pathway.
Mining and civil engineering industries sometimes use drilling muds for stabilizing a borehole during drilling wells for methane drainage, geothermal energy and radioactive waste disposal. Standard theories predicting borehole breakdown pressure assume breakdown occurs when a small fracture initiates at a location where the largest tangential stress at the borehole reaches the tensile strength of formation. Fracturing tests conducted in this study, how- ever, showed that when drilling fluid was used as an injection fluid, borehole breakdown did not occur even if a fracture initiated at a borehole wall. Bore- hole breakdown occurred when the initiated fracture became unstable after significant growth with O. 76cm...
This project was conducted to evaluate the feasibility of using geothermal effluents for developing and maintaining waterfowl wetlands. Information in the document pertains to a seven State area the West where geothermal resources have development potential. Information is included on physiochemical characteristics of geothermal effluents; known effects of constituents in the water on a wetland ecosystem and water quality criteria for maintaining a viable wetland; potential of sites for wetland development and disposal of effluent water from geothermal facilities; methods of ‘disposal of effluents, including advantages of each method and associated costs; legal and Institutional constraints which could affect geothermal...
Because of concerns with the growing threat of global climate change from increasing emissions of greenhouse gases, the United States and other countries are implementing, by themselves or in cooperation with one or more other nations, climate change mitigation projects. These projects will reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or sequester carbon, and will also result in non-GHG benefits (i.e., environmental, economic, and social benefits). Monitoring, evaluating, reporting, and verifying (MERV) guidelines are needed for these projects to accurately determine their net GHG, and other, benefits. Implementation of MERV guidelines is also intended to: (1) increase the reliability of data for estimating GHG benefits;...
Increasingly, environmental quality is becoming recognized as a critical factor that should constrain land use planning. One important measure of a landscape's quality is its capacity to support viable populations of wildlife species. But the ability of land managers to balance conservation with other competing objectives is limited by a shortage of methodologies for assessing landscape quality. In response to this shortage, the research community has begun developing a variety of multispecies, landscape-level, assessment models. Useful models must strike a balance between parsimony and biological realism and must be designed to make the most of limited life history data. This paper applies two such assessments...
Humans have a variety of direct and indirect impacts on wildlife and a number of methods have been proposed to identify and quantify anthropogenic stressors that negatively impact wildlife. The ideal method would ultimately help predict the presence, absence, or population viability of animals living with a particular stressor. We critically review seven methods that have been used, or are potentially useful, to identify anthropogenic stressors on animals. We rank them from fitness indicators to disturbance indicators: breeding success, mate choice, fluctuating asymmetry, flight initiation distance, immunocompetence, glucocorticoids, and cardiac response. We describe each method's ease of use, precision in quantifying...
Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the US Department of Energy (DOE) have been funding a number of case studies under the initiative entitled “Economic Development through Biomass Systems Integration”, with the objective of investigate the feasibility of integrated biomass energy systems, utilizing a dedicated feedstock supply system (DFSS) for energy production. This paper deals with the full fuel cycle for four of these case studies. which have been examined with regard to the emissions of carbon dioxide, COZ. Although the conversion of biomass to electricity in itself does not emit more CO1 than is captured by the biomass through photosynthesis, there will be some CO1 emissions from the DFSS. External...
Because of concerns with the growing threat of global climate change from increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the United States and other countries are implementing, by themselves or in cooperation with one or more other nations, climate change mitigation projects. These projects will reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and may also result in non-GHG benefits and costs (i.e., other environmental and socioeconomic benefits and costs). Monitoring, evaluating, reporting, verifying, and certifying (MERVC) guidelines are needed for these projects in order to accurately determine their impact on GHG and other attributes. Implementation of standardized guidelines is also intended to: (1)...
Because of concerns with the growing threat of global climate change from increasing emissions of greenhouse gases, the United States and other countries are implementing, by themselves or in cooperation with one or more other nations, climate change mitigation projects. These projects will reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or sequester carbon, and will also result in non-GHG benefits (i.e., environmental, economic, and social benefits). Monitoring, evaluating, reporting, and verifying (MERV) guidelines are needed for these projects to accurately determine their net GHG, and other, benefits. Implementation of MERV guidelines is also intended to: (1) increase the reliability of data for estimating GHG benefits;...