POWER Magazine Announces: The Big Picture Guidebook

POWER Magazine Announces:
The Big Picture Guidebook
The BIG PICTURE, POWER magazine's monthly infographic series, visualizes prominent power generation trends and issues from around the world. Now, find all of these articles in one convenient spot.

Delivered in a PDF format.

Table of Contents:

The Coal Pile
About 1,199 new coal-fired facilities (as defined by the World Research Institute)—a total installed capacity of 1,401 GW—were being proposed globally as of July 2012, spread across 59 countries. China and India account for about 76% of the proposed coal power capacities, and Chinese and Indian companies lead the pack of 483 firms proposing to build the new plants. These are the 10 countries leading the global coal power boom. Sources: World Research Institute, International Energy Agency

Nuclear I&C

Progress in electronics and information technology has created incentives to replace traditional analog instrumentation and control (I&C) systems in nuclear power plants with digital I&C systems, or systems based on computers and microprocessors. About 40% of the world’s operating reactors have been modernized to include at least some digital I&C systems, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. From another perspective, 90% of all digital I&C installations have been modernization projects at existing reactors; 10% have been at new reactors. POWER looks at nuclear plants around the world that are leading the digital revolution.

Stretching the Pipeline

World natural gas demand climbed to 3,361 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2011, increasing in all regions, with the exception of Europe. Countries with the largest volumetric gains in consumption were China (21.5%), Saudi Arabia (13.2%), and Japan (11.6%). North America, led by the U.S. (2.4%), became the second-largest consumer market after Asia-Pacific. In 2011, gas demand growth was accompanied by expanding international pipeline flows (which have increased about 3.7% per year since 2009) and inter-regional transport capacity. Here are some of the longest pipelines recently built as well as noteworthy ones in the pipeline.

Subsidy Tug-of-War

Government decisions to subsidize renewable power to increase its capacity or environmental and security reasons have spurred investments but also increased cross-border tensions. Increasingly, legal actions that seek to settle international trade disputes allege unfair subsidization. Here are some of the major ongoing cases.

Critical Energy Agendas

The global energy sector will need to invest half of current world gross domestic product over the next two decades in order to address a number of critical issues and expand and adapt the energy infrastructure, the London-based World Energy Council (WEC) says in its recently released World Energy Issues Monitor. Here are the most pressing issues affecting three regions. The top-left quadrant of each regional map represents issues of high uncertainty and high impact; the top-right quadrant covers issues of high impact but of higher certainty—things that keep energy leaders busy. The bottom-left quadrant represents issues of perceived lesser importance (or those that are poorly understood), and the bottomright quadrant presents issues of low impact and high certainty. Bubbles are proportional to the urgency of an issue.

Power Accident Impacts

The history of electric power has been stained by several devastating incidents triggered by natural hazards, technological failures, malicious actions, and human error. Here POWER surveys some of the world’s most devastating or costly incidents.

Parched

Water scarcity as it relates to energy use is becoming a major concern. Cooling water accounts for more than 50% of national water withdrawals in several developed countries (Eurostat 2010), and it is becoming more important as developing countries become more energy-intensive. At a river basin level, dry periods have triggered rolling blackouts, and not just because hydropower plants are forced to operate at dangerously low levels. POWER takes a look at more recent droughtrelated outages around the world.

Workforce Woes

The U.S. power sector is grappling with a rapidly morphing energy mix and reliability concerns made more urgent by a predicted 28% increase in power consumption through 2040. Another complication: the sector’s workforce, like its assets, is maturing and shrinking. As more entities look into smart grids and put renewables and storage options online, more uncertainty is presented by the increased complexity of varying future workforce needs.

Fuel Balance

In 2012, as the massive development of unconventional gas production continued in the U.S., domestic natural gas prices plunged and a swathe of American power utilities realized a coal-to-gas switch in favor of the cheaper fuel. But Europe, where natural gas is still largely linked to the price of oil and remains costly, saw countervailing effects: As coal volumes surged (from increased U.S. exports), and the carbon trading system stagnated, coal has become the power generation fuel of choice in several European Union (EU) countries at the expense of natural gas.

Emissions Enforcement

Since 1999 when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) initiated what is perhaps its most comprehensive enforcement initiative, it has issued complaints, notices of violations, and administrative orders for hundreds of coal units under the Clean Air Act’s New Source Review (NSR) program. The agency alleges that these units failed to obtain a Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) permit to install Best Available Control Technology (BACT) prior to “modifying” the units in a manner that increased emissions of air pollutants. More than 70% of the nation’s coal-fired fleet is under investigation for NSR violations.

Reactor Outages

At the end of 2012, 436 reactors were connected to the grid, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA’s) PRIS database. Operating reactors had an average 2,239 full outage hours per reactor in 2012; about 15% of that time represented unplanned outages, caused by a variety of factors. Source: IAEA; Notes: BWR = boiling water reactor; FBR = fast breeder reactor; GCR = gas-cooled reactor; LWGR = light water cooled graphite moderated reactor; PHWR = pressurized heavy water reactor; PWR = pressurized water reactor.

Capturing Carbon

Of 64 large-scale integrated projects to capture and store more than 25 million tonnes per year of carbon dioxide (CO2) that are already active or planned worldwide, only 29 are dedicated to the power sector. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects are operational in the gas processing and high-purity industries, but not in the power generation sector. The pace of CCS development remains well below the level for CCS to make a substantial contribution to climate change mitigation, says the Global CCS Institute. Its cause: not technical uncertainties but insufficient policy support “exacerbated by poor public understanding of the technology.”

Gas Taxes

After years of political wrangling, coal-rich Australia in November passed legislation that will require the nation’s top 500 polluters, starting in July 2012, to pay a tax at a fixed price of A$23 (US$23.50) per ton of carbon. The tax increases 2.5% annually until 2015, when an emissions trading program will begin. With the Kyoto Treaty set to expire at the end of this year, several governments have in recent years implemented similar measures on manufacturers and power companies. Others—like South Africa, China, South Korea, Taiwan, and France—have proposed or are considering taxes on carbon emissions. See the web exclusive story associated with this issue at www.powermag.com for an in-depth look at the world’s carbon taxes.

DOE Loan Guarantees

Of the $35.9 billion in loan guarantees awarded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) since 2009, roughly $26.5 billion have financed nuclear and renewable power projects across the nation through the Section 1703 and 1705 loan guarantee programs. Section 1703 of the 2005 Energy Policy Act’s (EPAct’s) Title XVII is meant to support clean energy technologies (including nuclear, advanced fossil energy coal, carbon sequestration, and projects promoting industrial energy efficiency) that are unable to obtain conventional private financing due to high technology risks. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 amended the Loan Guarantee Programs by adding Section 1705 to EPAct. That program—which ended Sept. 30, 2011—authorized loan guarantees for renewable energy and transmission projects. Here’s a look at how these loan guarantee programs have been rainmakers for nuclear and solar generation in particular.

Dammed Dams

New coal and nuclear power plants aren’t the only ones facing opposition. Several countries that are struggling to alleviate chronic power shortages are facing hurdles as they attempt to build new hydropower plants. Here are some massive projects riddled with setbacks caused by everything from social and environmental protests to funding collapses.

Nuclear Aftershocks

In the year following the Fukushima accident in Japan, the nuclear sector has seen several setbacks as well as major milestones. Background image from video of the Daiichi plant in the early morning hours of March 12.

Coal Demand Surges

Patterns of coal trade have been shifting in recent years as demand surges in Asian countries. Whereas Japan and the European Union (EU) have long been the world’s largest hard coal importers, China and India are now emerging as top importers. This surge has shifted the center of gravity in international coal trade to the Pacific Basin market, as estimates from the International Energy Agency (IEA) show. All projections are per the IEA’s New Policies Scenario, which assumes cautious implementation of policy commitments and plans announced by countries around the world. Note: All figures in million tonnes of coal equivalent.

A Shale Gas Revolution

Large circles represent technical reserves and small circles represent potential reserves of shale gas, both in trillion cubic feet. Bars on the right represent each region’s existing natural gas–fired generation in 2008 and the amount projected for 2035 in TWh.

Infrastructure

Aging infrastructure ranks at the top of the U.S. electric power sector’s concerns, flanked by the exorbitant investment needed to keep the system in good repair.

Mercury Regulations Rising

Countries with the Highest Mercury Emissions from Fossil Fuel Combustion for Power and Heating

A Big Switch

The widespread transition from coal to natural gas for new generation is exemplified by the morphing fleets of some of the biggest U.S. generators.

Regulation Road

The road traveled by much of the U.S. power sector over the past five years has been a long and winding one, marked by new regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and key legal developments. More regulations are expected over the next five years.

Advanced Fission

Reactor technology has been developed and improved over more than five decades. The first-generation reactors developed in the 1950s and ‘60s were superseded by a second generation, typified by existing nuclear fleets in the U.S., France, and elsewhere. Here’s a look at how technology is advancing around the world.

And so much more!

Order your copy today.