Mountain Biking: Rubber side down- Time for a TurnaroundWell, my friends, things are finally looking up, and good timing, too, since I’m sure you’re all sick of me bitching. Recent bike build, including wheels… fun! In what feels like a fairly short time, I’ve come from sitting around … Continue reading → […]
- This Raised My PulseHey, baby… wanna ride? I may be injured, but I’m not dead yet. I can still have racy thoughts. Here’s more info. In other news, UBI was an awesome success! I had a blast. I highly recommend it. Overhaul day…. … Continue reading → […]
- Time for a Turnaround
- Edgy Veggie
Solar-assisted coal plant coming to Colorado
A mirrored parabolic trough used in concentrated solar power technology.
Xcel Energy is adding solar thermal technology to its Cameo coal plant near Grand Junction in Colorado — creating the first coal plant that gets a steam-assist from the sun.
The Spanish company Abengoa Solar will build a concentrating solar plant that will use parabolic mirrors that will focus sunlight on a narrow tube of oil. After the super-heated oil is pumped out of the solar field, it creates steam through a series of heat exchanges. In the case of Xcel’s coal plant, the steam from the sun can join the steam created from burning coal, allowing the plant to burn less coal when the sun is shining.
The scheme, called a demonstration project by Xcel, is meant to demonstrate that adding solar can lower carbon dioxide emissions. If successful, Abengoa hopes that concentrated solar power may be added at coal plants across the country.
Read more about concentrated solar power, or CSP, at DailyCamera.com, or check out Abengoa Solar’s Web site.
Xcel Energy queued up for more Powder River coal
Xcel Energy's new coal-burning unit at its Comanche Station outside of Pueblo is scheduled to crank up this fall.
Greenies are fighting a proposed expansion of coal mines in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, which would feed new coal-burning power plants like the one planned by Xcel Energy outside of Pueblo.
This out today from the Associated Press:
Environmentalists are urging people to oppose the proposed expansion of Wyoming coal mines. They say the mines are the primary source of large amounts of greenhouse gas.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management estimates that nearly 14 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions originates from coal mined from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin.
Wyoming produces more coal than any other state by far. Most is burned in power plants and scientists say such plants contribute to climate change by releasing carbon dioxide.
Xcel Energy is planning to crank up a new coal-burning generator at its Comanche power plant outside of Pueblo. The new unit — which is four times the size of Boulder’s Valmont coal plant — will burn about 2 million tons of Powder River coal every year.
Boulder’s Leslie Glustrom, founder of Clean Energy Action, has been fighting the Comanche expansion tooth and nail. Check out the fact sheet she made up on the new coal-burning unit at CleanEnergyAction.org.
