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Monday, January 7, 2008
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Here's a look at new water requirements for dish washers and clothes washers that were included in the recent energy package passed by the Congress. From the article:
Energy legislation approved by Congress and signed by President Bush in December has established - for the first time - minimum national water efficiency standards for residential clothes washers and dishwashers. The standards contained in H. R. 6, the "Energy Independence and Security Act," were developed during negotiations between appliance manufacturers and efficiency advocates that concluded in April 2007. Standard-sized dishwashers manufactured after January 1, 2010, will be limited to 6.5 gallons per cycle, and compact dishwashers will be limited to 4.5 gallons per cycle. Residential clothes washers manufactured after January 1, 2011, must meet a maximum water factor of 9.5. The new law also directs the Department of Energy to undertake new rule-makings to consider even stronger efficiency standards for clothes washers and dishwashers, which, if approved by the Secretary, would take effect in 2015 and 2018 respectively. Prior to the passage of this bill, there was no requirement in law for the Department of Energy to consider any new standards for clothes washers or dishwashers in the future.
The lion's share of the water savings expected from the new standards will come from clothes washers. The adoption of the 9.5 water factor beginning in 2011 will have a significant impact on the 70% of today's sales that are top-loaders, which have an average water factor of about 11.5. A rough approximation of the potential water savings suggests it will be substantial. Each year's clothes washer production with the 9.5 water factor in place should save over 40 million gallons per day (mgd). After four years, water savings nationwide should be around 175 mgd. Furthermore, there is a good chance that the DOE rulemaking to be completed by December 2011 (to take effect in January 2015) will require a water factor of 8.0 or less. At 8.0, water savings would grow by over 75 mgd per year, reaching nearly 650 mgd by the end of 2020. This is about 1.5% of total annual public water supply withdrawals in the US in recent years.
Thanks to The Water Information Program for the link.
Category: Colorado Water
6:09:59 PM 
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From The Pueblo Chieftain, "A federal attorney said Friday the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation soon will ask a judge to throw out a lawsuit that seeks to nullify a contract for Aurora to receive water from the Arkansas River...The federal attorney, James DuBois, did not specify on what grounds the bureau will ask for the lawsuit to be dismissed. DuBois, an attorney for the U.S. Justice Department's Natural Resources Division, represents Reclamation. DuBois made his comments to Chief U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham during a five-minute status conference, the first courtroom proceeding in the case."
Category: Colorado Water
7:07:23 AM
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Many consider oil shale development as the great hope for energy independence for the U.S. Huge deposits exist in Wyoming, Utah and Colorado. All it's going to take to develop it commercially is a high enough price for oil ($100 barrel?) and all of the water Colorado has left to develop in the Colorado River system. Here's a look at oil shale development from The Durango Herald. They write:
Companies have produced oil from these rocks in the past, but they have never done it in a way that makes sense economically. Now, with oil prices at $100 a barrel, oil companies - big and small - are back in Colorado, eyeing a payoff that could be hundreds of billions of dollars. Netherlands-based Shell is taking the lead. Although the company dropped its state mining permit application this summer, it is still very serious about its project, said Shell's Denver-based spokeswoman Jill Davis. "We just know there's a huge benefit to our national security and our oil supply if we can do it. That's why we're sticking with it," Davis said.
Private companies own some oil-shale lands in Colorado, but they need to lease federal land to get the best oil-shale deposits. The federal government plans to lease the lands to oil companies by moving ahead on two separate - critics say contradictory - tracks. Last year, the Bureau of Land Management awarded leases for five, 160-acre tracts in the Piceance Basin (pronounced PEA-ahns) to companies for research and demonstration projects. Shell got three tracts, and Chevron and EGL each got one. But the agency also plans to offer commercial oil-shale leases well before the research work is done on the five tracts. The BLM released a draft Environmental Impact Statement for the commercial leasing program last month. In late 2007, congressional Democrats tried unsuccessfully to delay the study and leasing program, which were mandated in the 2005 Energy Policy Act, passed when Republicans controlled Congress...
Shell, Chevron and EGL all plan some form of "in-situ," or underground, shale processing. Shell is the most public about its idea. It plans to put coolers into the ground to build a "freeze wall," then pump out the groundwater inside the wall and bake the rocks at 650-750 degrees Fahrenheit for a few years before pumping out the liquids and gases. Shell expects to get natural gas, gasoline, diesel and jet fuel once it runs the shale oil through a processing plant on the surface. The plant will be like a refinery, but smaller, Davis said. "It's not going to need a major refinery," Davis said. "It's still columns and parts and pieces - don't get me wrong. But it's slightly more efficient." Shell will be working on its freeze-wall test for the next few years. By 2010, the company will be at a major decision point for its project, Davis said.
Chevron spokesman Dan Johnson said the California-based company needs three to seven years to work on its tests. "We have a very go-slow approach. We are supporting research and demonstration," Johnson said. "We know that we have to do this right, or we shouldn't do it at all." Chevron is working with Los Alamos National Laboratory on its technology. It involves drilling into the shale formation and passing hot and cold gases over the rock to melt the oil out of it, Johnson said. The process is not heavily dependent on water, he said...
In 1981, oil was selling for $93 a barrel, adjusted for inflation. By Black Sunday, it had fallen to $71 a barrel. It kept falling through the late 1990s, except for a few spikes. But last week, oil reached $100 a barrel. At these prices, companies see the potential for profits to make the big projects worthwhile. Shell estimates that its method can wring 1 million barrels of oil out of a single acre of ground. That's more than $40 billion from the three 160-acre leases Shell already owns. If its demonstration projects work and it wins federal approval to expand its leases to 27 square miles, then it takes a calculator with extra digits to show how much all that oil might be worth. In the best case, "That's the sort of manageable prize that Shell is looking at from this potential," said Davis. But, she said, Shell has to prove its technology first. It has already produced oil from shale, but now it has to prove it can protect the environment, she said. Chevron officials look at the size of tomorrow's market. Six billion people live on Earth, and there might be 9 billion by the middle of the century. "We're probably going to need every molecule of energy going forward that we can get to meet the needs of that growing population," Johnson said. That's what brings Chevron back to Colorado's notoriously difficult oil-shale deposits. "The easy oil, we pretty much have used up," he said. The military is involved in Colorado, too. The 2005 energy bill required the secretary of defense to write a strategy for using fuel made from oil shale, coal and tar sands in American military vehicles. Global politics have a direct effect on Colorado in this case. And Coloradans might not get to choose their fate, said Dan Birch, who is leading a study on oil shale and water for the local river basins. "Because of what's going on in the world and what's going on with oil demand, there could be a strong pressure to do this that is beyond Colorado's control," Birch said.
Here's a look at the potential water infrastructure and needs for oil shale development from The Durango Herald. From the article:
No one has ever rowed a boat across Stillwater Reservoir. Or caught a fish at Fourteenmile Reservoir. Or stood on the beach of Roan Creek Reservoir. These are all imaginary lakes. They exist only in the minds of oil company executives and attorneys. But the oil companies own legal rights to build and fill these reservoirs, which would be in Garfield and Rio Blanco counties. And as the companies take another look at Colorado's oil shale deposits, which would require vast amounts of water to develop, they might make those imaginary lakes a reality. Their water rights are huge, and getting bigger. Shell has been buying large water rights on the Western Slope for the last five years and just completed a major purchase in July.
State leaders are watching. "I've seen estimates that oil shale, if it is developed, would consume 100 percent of the remaining water in the Colorado River system," said U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar. Harris Sherman, director of the state's Department of Natural Resources, has seen the draft of an upcoming federal study on oil shale, although he can't divulge its details because of a confidentiality agreement. But he let something slip to members of the Water Conservation Board in Craig this summer. "I assure you there will be numbers associated with water for oil-shale development that will gain our attention," Sherman said. But no one has an answer to the big question: How much water will the oil industry take?[...]
"The difficulty and the problem is everybody's playing their cards pretty close to their vest. Or they don't have a good idea what their water needs will be," said Dan Birch, who is leading a study into the question for the local river basins. "I think on the low end, we're talking about 10,000 acre-feet a year. On the upper end, we're talking about hundreds of thousands of acre-feet a year, maybe 500,000, which by all estimates is everything Colorado has left to develop," Birch said. Colorado uses about 2.1 million acre-feet a year from the Colorado River Basin, which includes southwestern rivers like the Animas and Dolores, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. On paper, Colorado gets 3.8 million acre-feet a year under the 1922 compact and subsequent agreements. But few water experts believe Colorado will get anything close to that much, because of climate change and natural dry cycles. Birch's boss at the river district, Eric Kuhn, thinks Colorado already might be using all the water to which it is legally entitled. Birch thinks it will take a year to finish the study, which will look at the water needs of many forms of energy, not just shale mining...
Chevron owns the biggest water rights of the oil companies, but Shell has been the most aggressive in snapping up new water for its research project. In 2002, it bought Exxon's old rights from a ranch in Northwest Colorado. That purchase forms the core of Shell's future water system. It includes three large reservoirs. This year, Shell bought Piceance State Wildlife Area, which sits on the creek bottom near its research project. The land came with several small water rights, some of which are from the late 19th century. In return, Shell gave the state land to expand a different wildlife refuge plus $444,000 cash. And in July, Shell closed the books on a purchase of land and water rights west of Grand Junction. Davis, the Shell spokeswoman, said she's not at liberty to say why the company bought those water rights. It may or may not be for the oil-shale project, she said. But an oil-shale critic, Cathy Kay with the Western Colorado Congress, said the land is next to a coal mine. Shell will need electricity to run its oil-shale project, and Kay worries that the area could be used for a coal power plant. Altogether, it's just too much water for an industry that hasn't proven itself, Kay said. "Surely, the lawmakers cannot allow one industry to chew up the rest of the compact for something that's so elusive," she said. Davis takes issue with environmental groups that criticize the oil industry's water plans. "The whole implication is that the industry is going to be so big and bad that it's going to dry up the rivers," Davis said. In fact, the industry's size will be limited by the water supply, the work force, air quality and the oil market, she said. By 2009 or 2010, Shell will have to decide whether its technology is ready to be used at a larger scale, Davis said. Johnson said his company, Chevron, needs another three to seven years to work on its research and development project...
The federal government itself holds water rights for oil shale. It has the right to use 49,000 acre-feet a year for the oil-shale reserve it set aside in 1916. At least some of those rights, however, are for national defense purposes and not for commercial oil-shale development, said Roy Smith with the Bureau of Land Management. The Department of Energy's 2004 Oil Shale Development Roadmap says water availability might be a significant problem for a large shale industry - one that satisfied 10 percent to 20 percent of U.S. oil demand. "Alternate water sources, including interbasin transfers and new gathering and storage projects, need to be identified," the report says. It does not specify a source for the interbasin transfers, but such a project would make history. The rivers surrounding the Colorado Basin are small, and water has always been transferred out of the Colorado to cities from Denver to Los Angeles. Large volumes of water never have been imported into the Colorado Basin. Even though the shale industry might not get going for 10 years, water projects take 10 or 20 years to build. The critical time to examine oil shale is now, said Birch, who is leading the energy and water study.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here and here.
Category: 2008 Presidential Election
6:51:24 AM
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Oil and gas production usually results in produced water that must be treated or re-injected for disposal. Coal-bed methane production removes great quantities of groundwater from shallow aquifers to release pressure so that the methane can can be recovered. Energy is also required to deliver water to irrigators, businesses and homes. According to The Durango Herald the connection between water and energy causes headaches for planners. From the article:
"It goes both ways. There's water needed to produce energy. But there's energy needed to develop and deliver water," said [Melinda] Kassen, who sits on a high-level water panel called the Interbasin Compact Committee. "If you talk about this, I think, you need to talk about both sides." Coal power plants need water to generate steam for their turbines and to cool off excess heat in their towers. Ethanol requires water for irrigation and to process corn into a useable fuel. Oil shale needs water to scour the underground rocks and refine the product into fuel for vehicles and jets. Fast-growing Phoenix will build five more power plants, Kassen said, yet none of the water demand estimates she's seen for the Western United States take the increased demand for power into account. By 2030, U.S. power plants could be using as much water as all domestic users in the country were in 1995, according to a Department of Energy report called "Energy Demands on Water Resources." [pdf]
Closer to home, water planners are keeping their eyes on the large conditional water rights of Shell and Chevron, but the largest conditional water right in Colorado is for a future power plant. The Colorado River Water Conservation District owns the right to store more than 1 million acre-feet of water a year in Juniper Reservoir. Like the oil companies' reservoirs, Juniper does not exist yet. The Eastern Plains are producing energy, too, thanks to the ethanol boom. But today's ethanol plants use corn, and Colorado corn usually requires irrigation. Ethanol made from irrigated corn takes about 1,400 gallons of water per one gallon of ethanol produced, according to the Department of Energy's report. However, a lot of the acres used for ethanol are already under cultivation, and some of the water used for irrigation seeps into the ground and eventually migrates back into the river for use downstream. It takes energy to move water, too, Kassen said. Farmers and suburbs need power to run their well pumps.
Category: Colorado Water
6:37:13 AM
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Infrastructure to move water to homes, businesses and farms along with treatment is the subject of this article from The Pueblo Chieftain, the last in their series, "Water Logs." From the article:
...the cost of providing, treating and removing the water is going up and beginning to cause concern. New federal standards for trace contaminants are expected to drive up costs with the need for improvements to water systems. At a meeting of the legislative Water Resources Committee last summer, Kevin Bommer of the Colorado Municipal League said there are $2.3 billion of municipal water projects that need to be funded in the next few years. "The need is out there," Bommer said. "Many communities are running out of money and don't have the means to get back into compliance."
The Arkansas Valley is in the same shape, whether it's a city like Colorado Springs, that plans to invest $250 million in wastewater upgrades and is trying to begin a $1 billion water delivery project or a small water district on the Eastern Plains trying to deal with radionuclides in its well water. The Pueblo Board of Water Works for years has been making improvements to its water plant and street lines, but has still maintained the lowest water rates on the Front Range. This year, the water board began looking at future water projects and is raising the plant investment fee incrementally to reflect higher infrastructure costs. In the Arkansas Valley, the lowest connection fee found in any community, in a Chieftain survey last year, was Las Animas, at $750. Fountain, facing the highest growth in the valley, had the highest fee at $15,012. The City of Pueblo raised sewer rates 25 percent nearly a year ago to cope with more repairs and maintenance on its wastewater lines. The city spent more than $1 million last year on emergency repairs and upgrades.
Penrose received an $8.8 million Colorado Water Conservation Board loan last year to shore up its water supply. The Canon City Council recently approved a 20.5 percent water rate increase to help pay the cost of nearly $11 million worth of water treatment system upgrades. Water projects are eligible for state funding through four agencies: the Department of Health and Public Environment, Department of Local Affairs, CWCB and the Colorado Power and Water Development Authority. Federal funds come primarily through the Environmental Protection Agency...
Cities across the state are looking at higher costs for maintaining, upgrading or replacing water systems.
The issue: About $2.3 billion in drinking water and wastewater projects are needed throughout the state. State officials say $773 million of that is critical to meet federal clean water guidelines.
What's at stake: State and federal funding sources are not sufficient to keep up with clean water mandates, and local communities may be paying a bigger share than in the past.
Why it matters: Besides meeting federal standards, communities need safe and reliable water infrastructure.
Who's involved: Every water system in Colorado faces the same challenges.
The Chieftain does a terrific job covering the Arkansas Valley and San Luis Valley. If you live in their delivery area why not buy a subscription or, if not, shop their advertisers? If you have a business in the Ark Valley please consider adverstising with them. News organizations can really use some help here at the start of the 21st century.
Category: Colorado Water
6:12:00 AM
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© Copyright
2008
John Orr.
Last update:
1/31/08; 9:11:57 AM.
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