Hi EVENTS; Air & Climate 2014/15.

Hi EVENTS; Air & Climate 2014/15.

The Air Quality and Emissions Show (AQE) 2015. Telford - United Kingdom Apr. 22 - 23, 2015. The 8th in the series of Air Quality & Emissions Events will focus on industrial emissions and stack monitoring of (Part A) processes regulated by the Environment Agency, ambient air quality monitoring,the emissions to air of Part A2 and Part B processes controlled by local authorities, MCERTS standards,.....

Practical Air Dispersion Modeling Workshop - CA, USA Los Angeles - California (USA) Nov. 5 - 7, 2014. This three day workshop is intended for individuals with little or no prior knowledge of air dispersion modeling techniques for continuous releases. New regulations require dispersion models to be used to estimate the magnitude of pollutants from industrial sources on populations both near and far ... Climate Change: Building the Age of Resilience. London - United Kingdom Oct. 23, 2014. This conference will look at the case for developing resilient systems and infrastructure in light of a changing climate. It will examine the range of uncertainties in climate predictions, how different sectors are currently approaching ... Climate Change: Earth System, Future Scenarios and Threats 2014. Newcastle upon Tyne - United Kingdom Nov. 10 - 14, 2014. The course starts with the science of climate change, dealing with uncertainties and the major issues affecting our understanding of the climate system and its future behaviour. It then moves on to climate modelling, covering the ... Lima Climate Change Conference - December 2014. Lima - Peru Dec. 1 - 12, 2014. The 20th session of the Conference of the Parties and the 10th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol will be held from 1 to 12 December. COP 20/CMP 10 will be hosted by ... Air Pollution 2014. Newcastle - United Kingdom Dec. 8 - 12, 2014. This course will: * introduce the fundamentals of air pollution with a background on historical perspective on air pollution and a commentary on current air quality policies and standards; * discuss major pollutants, their ... Clean Air Compliance Manager March 2015. Las Vegas - Nevada (USA) Mar. 17 - 19, 2015. This is a 3-day course providing a comprehensive look at the Federal Clean Air Act (CAA), its history and drivers, each of the Titles of the 1990 CAA Amendments, and the permitting process. 2015 Northeast Indoor Air Quality and Energy Conference. Portland - Maine (USA) Apr. 15 - 16, 2015. The Northeast IAQ & Energy Conference (formerly called the Maine Indoor Air Quality Conference) is the largest IAQ conference ... 23rd International Conference on Modelling, Monitoring and Management of Air Pollution. Valencia - Spain Jun. 1 - 3, 2015. The conferences in this series have discussed and considered many important air pollution issues and the international nature of the attendees has ensured that the conference findings and conclusions enjoy a wide and rapid dissemination ... 6th World Hydrogen Technologies Convention (WHTC) 2015. Sydney - Australia Oct. 11 - 14, 2015. The World Hydrogen Technologies Convention (WHTC), a leading technical and commercial event for the global hydrogen energy and fuel cell community, will be held at Australian Technology Park, Sydney on October 11-14, 2015,

Hi Application note: Eight things to consider when choosing outdoor humidity instruments.

Hi Application note: Eight things to consider when choosing outdoor humidity instruments.

Hi ‘Eight things to consider when choosing an outdoor humidity instrument’;

Outdoor humidity and temperature measurement is essential for applications such as energy management and indoor climate control. Just one outdoor humidity sensor typically optimises the energy efficiency of cooling equipment. However, if this sensor is not accurate, both energy efficiency and human comfort may be compromised. This application note from Vaisala discusses using solar radiation shields; guidelines for installing outdoor humidity instruments; the elements of a good radiation shield; the most common humidity parameters used in free cooling; and more.

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(Hi) - EPA, U.S. to Cut Carbon Pollution from Existing Power Plants!.

(Hi) - EPA, U.S. to Cut Carbon Pollution from Existing Power Plants!.

The Clean Power Plan is a proposal to ensure a healthier environment, spur innovation and strengthen the economy.

After a major outreach effort, the EPA is releasing the Clean Power Plan proposal to cut carbon pollution from existing power plants, the single largest source of carbon pollution in the United States.

The proposal will protect public health, move the United States toward a cleaner environment and fight climate change while supplying Americans with reliable and affordable power.

"Climate change, fueled by carbon pollution, supercharges risks to our health, our economy, and our way of life. EPA is delivering on a vital piece of the Climate Action Plan by proposing a Clean Power Plan that will cut harmful carbon pollution from our largest source--power plants," said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. 

"By leveraging cleaner energy sources and cutting energy waste, this plan will clean the air we breathe while helping slow climate change so we can leave a safe and healthy future for our kids. We don't have to choose between a healthy economy and a healthy environment--our action will sharpen America’s competitive edge, spur innovation and create jobs."

Power plants account for roughly one-third of all domestic greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. 

While there are limits in place for the level of arsenic, mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particle pollution that power plants can emit, there are currently no national limits on carbon pollution levels.

With the Clean Power Plan, EPA is proposing guidelines that build on trends already underway in states and the power sector to cut carbon pollution from existing power plants, making them more efficient and less polluting. 

This proposal follows through on the common-sense steps laid out in the Climate Action Plan and the June 2013 Presidential Memorandum.

By 2030, the steady and responsible steps EPA is taking will:

• Cut carbon emission from the power sector by 30 percent nationwide below 2005 levels, which is equal to the emissions from powering more than half the homes in the United States for one year.

• Cut particle pollution, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide by more than 25 percent as a co-benefit.

• Avoid up to 6,600 premature deaths, up to 150,000 asthma attacks in children and up to 490,000 missed work or school days—providing up to $93 billion in climate and public health benefits.

• Shrink electricity bills roughly 8 percent by increasing energy efficiency and reducing demand in the electricity system.

The Clean Power Plan will be implemented through a state-federal partnership under which states identify a path forward using either current or new electricity production and pollution control policies to meet the goals of the proposed program. 

The proposal provides guidelines for states to develop plans to meet state-specific goals to reduce carbon pollution and gives them the flexibility to design a program that makes the most sense for their unique situation. 

States can choose the right mix of generation using diverse fuels, energy efficiency and demand-side management to meet the goals and their own needs. It allows them to work alone to develop individual plans or to work together with other states to develop multi-state plans.

Also included in the proposal is a flexible timeline for states to follow for submitting plans to the agency—with plans due in June 2016, with the option to use a two-step process for submitting final plans if more time is needed. States that have already invested in energy efficiency programs will be able to build on these programs during the compliance period to help make progress toward meeting their goal.

Since last summer, EPA has directly engaged with state, tribal and local governments, industry and labor leaders, nonprofits and others. 

The data, information and feedback provided during this effort helped guide the development of the proposal and further confirmed that states have been leading the way for years in saving families and businesses money through improving efficiency, while cleaning up pollution from power plants. To date, 47 states have utilities that run demand-side energy efficiency programs, 38 have renewable portfolio standards or goals, and 10 have market-based greenhouse gas emissions programs. 

Together, the agency believes that these programs represent a proven, common-sense approach to cutting carbon pollution—one in which electricity is generated and used as efficiently as possible and which promotes a greater reliance on lower-carbon power sources.

The announcement marks the beginning of the second phase of the agency’s outreach efforts. 

EPA will accept comment on the proposal for 120 days after publication in the Federal Register and will hold four public hearings on the proposed Clean Power Plan during the week of July 28 in the following cities:

Denver, Atlanta, Washington, D.C. and Pittsburgh. Based on this input, EPA will finalize standards next June following the schedule laid out in the June 2013 Presidential Memorandum.

Fact sheets and details about the proposed 

rule available by clicking the following link 

here or the images above. 

For More information on President Obama’s Climate Action Plan Click The Following Link Here To Visit The White House Official Webpage For Climate Change & View Videos Below. 

Related Event!. 

Hi Climate change already affecting US.

HI Climate change already affecting US.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- When it came time to deliver a new federal report detailing what global warming is doing to America and the dire forecast for the future, President Barack Obama turned to the pros who regularly deliver the bad news about wild weather: TV meteorologists.

'We want to emphasize to the public, this is not some distant problem of the future. This is a problem that is affecting Americans right now,' Obama told 'Today' show weathercaster Al Roker. 'Whether it means increased flooding, greater vulnerability to drought, more severe wildfires - all these things are having an impact on Americans as we speak.'

Climate change's assorted harms 'are expected to become increasingly disruptive across the nation throughout this century and beyond,' the National Climate Assessment concluded, emphasizing the impact of too-wild weather as well as simple warming.

Still, it's not too late to prevent the worst of climate change, says the 840-page report, which the Obama administration is highlighting as it tries to jump-start often-stalled efforts to curb heat-trapping gases. Said White House science adviser John Holdren, 'It's a good-news story about the many opportunities to take cost-effective actions to reduce the damage.'

Release of the report, the third edition of a congressionally mandated study, gives Obama an opportunity to ground his campaign against climate change in science and numbers, endeavoring to blunt the arguments of those who question the idea and human contributions to such changes. Later this summer, the administration plans to propose new regulations restricting gases that come from existing coal-fired power plants.

Not everyone is convinced.

Some fossil energy groups, conservative think tanks and Republican senators immediately assailed the report as 'alarmist.' Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Obama was likely to 'use the platform to renew his call for a national energy tax. And I'm sure he'll get loud cheers from liberal elites - from the kind of people who leave a giant carbon footprint and then lecture everybody else about low-flow toilets.'

Since taking office, Obama has not proposed a specific tax on fossil fuel emissions. He has proposed a system that caps emissions and allows companies to trade carbon pollution credits, but it has failed in Congress.

Republican Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana said the report was supposed to be scientific but 'it's more of a political one used to justify government overreach.' And leaders in the fossil fuel industry, which is responsible for a large amount of the heat-trapping carbon dioxide, said their energy is needed and America can't afford to cut back.

'Whether you agree or disagree with the report, the question is: What are you going to do about it? To us that is a major question,' said Charlie Drevna, president of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers. He called the report 'overblown.'

The report - it's full of figures, charts and other research-generated graphics - includes 3,096 footnotes referring to other mostly peer-reviewed research. It was written by more than 250 scientists and government officials, starting in 2012. A draft was released in January 2013, but this version has been reviewed by more scientists, including twice by the National Academy of Sciences, which called it 'reasonable' and 'a valuable resource.'

Environmental groups praised the report. 'If we don't slam the brakes on the carbon pollution driving climate change, we're dooming ourselves and our children to more intense heat waves, destructive floods and storms and surging sea levels,' said Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Scientists and the White House called it the most detailed and U.S.-focused scientific report on global warming.

The report looks at regional and state-level effects of global warming, compared with recent reports from the United Nations that lumped all of North America together.

'All Americans will find things that matter to them in this report,' said scientist Jerry Melillo of the Marine Biological Laboratory, who chaired the science committee that wrote it. 'For decades we've been collecting the dots about climate change; now we're connecting those dots.'

In a White House conference call with reporters, National Climatic Data Center Director Tom Karl said his two biggest concerns were flooding from sea level rise on the U.S. coastlines - especially for the low-lying cities of Miami; Norfolk, Virginia; and Portsmouth, New Hampshire - and drought, heat waves and prolonged fire seasons in the Southwest.

Even though the nation's average temperature has risen by between 1.3 and 1.9 degrees since record-keeping began in 1895, it's in the big, wild weather where the average person feels climate change the most, said co-author Katharine Hayhoe, a Texas Tech University climate scientist. Extreme weather hits us in the pocketbook and can be seen with our own eyes, she said.

The report says the intensity, frequency and duration of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes have increased since the early 1980s, but it is still uncertain how much of that is from man-made warming. Winter storms have increased in frequency and intensity and have shifted northward since the 1950s, it says. Also, heavy downpours are increasing - by 71 percent in the Northeast. Heat waves, such as those in Texas in 2011 and the Midwest in 2012, are projected to intensify nationwide. Droughts in the Southwest are expected to get stronger. Sea level has risen 8 inches since 1880 and is projected to rise between 1 foot and 4 feet by 2100.

Climate data center chief Karl highlighted the increase in downpours. He said last week's drenching, when Pensacola, Florida, got up to 2 feet of rain in one storm and parts of the East had 3 inches in one day, is what he's talking about.

The report says 'climate change threatens human health and well-being in many ways.' Those include smoke-filled air from wildfires, smoggy air from pollution, and more diseases from tainted food, water, mosquitoes and ticks. And the ragweed pollen season has lengthened.

Flooding alone may cost $325 billion by the year 2100 in one of the worst-case scenarios, with $130 billion of that in Florida, the report says. Already the droughts and heat waves of 2011 and 2012 have added about $10 billion to farm costs, the report says.

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Hi Challenges & Rewards for Wind Engineers.

(Hi) 'Challenges & Rewards for Engineers in Wind:

By Lawrence Willey, Robert Budny, and Sandeep Gupta – Clipper Windpower LLC

Notwithstanding the sluggish pace of the economic recovery and the cost of nearly everything seemingly on the rise, renewable energy production continues to be an important sector of the global economy. The adverse consequences of climate change, together with the shared global reality of governments, businesses, and individuals feeling a collective pain at the pump due to high oil prices, are spurring society to find ways to reduce fossil fuel consumption and develop alternative energy sources. While advances in traditional and alternative energy production are occurring, large utility scale wind energy is currently the most viable renewable solution available.Today, engineers looking to make an impact in the world need look no further than the challenges and rewards facing the wind energy sector.

There are many advantages that wind brings to the energy mix. For one, wind turbines do not produce combustion byproducts and can generate electricity for comparatively low costs, in many cases comparable to some of the lowest cost traditional methods such as natural gas fired combined cycle power plants. Some additional advantages for large utility scale wind energy include revitalization of rural communities, fewer government subsidies, free fuel, price stability, cost effective electricity production, and significant job creation.Wind energy projects create new short- and long-term jobs. Employment includes developers, surveyors, meteorologists, structural engineers, assembly workers, lawyers, bankers, and technicians to name just a few. Per unit of electricity generated, wind creates nearly 1/3 more jobs than a coal plant and nearly 2/3 more than a nuclear power plant.

Wind energy can diversify the economies of rural communities, adding to the tax base and providing new income. All energy systems are subsidized, and wind is no exception. However, wind receives considerably less than other forms of energy. The Government Accountability Office determined that fossil fuels received nearly five times as much in tax incentives as renewable energy did between fiscal years 2002-2007, with $13.7 billion going to fossil fuels compared to $2.8 billion for renewables.[1

Unlike other forms of electrical generation, wind generates electricity at the source of fuel.Wind does not need to be mined or transported, removing expensive elements from energy costs.The cost of wind-generated electricity has fallen from nearly 40¢ per kWh in the early 1980s to 2.5-6¢ per kWh today depending on wind speed and project size.

Modern land based utility scale wind turbines are in the 1.5-3.0 MW range.They consist of large structures designed to handle extremely high loads, and unusually high fatigue cycles.They must also operate over a wide range of environmental conditions, have a low maintenance requirement, and most importantly – they must be low cost. Comparison of the estimated cost of a helicopter and wind turbine blade highlights the difference in cost requirements; helicopter blades are about $1000 per pound compared to $5 to $20 for a wind turbine blade.

A model by Electric Power Research Institute,Technical Advisory Group (EPRI – TAG), is commonly used to calculate cost of energy (CoE) of utility scale wind turbines.

Where: FCR = Fixed charge rate, Cost Capital = Total capital cost of the project, and CostO&M = Operations and maintenance cost per unit of energy.

From this relationship, FCR, Capital Cost, and O&M must be as low as possible, and at the same time the AEP should be as high as possible. Using 9% cost of money and assuming installed 2.5MW turbine example levels of Capital Cost, O&M, and AEP of $1.43M/MW, $25/MWh, and 8300 MWh respectively, the resulting CoE is about $64/MWh. If this example turbine was in an area where retail electricity cost consumers $80-90/MWh, the wind turbine owner would stand to make a healthy profit, even without government subsidies.

Many opponents of wind energy try to point to the intermittency of wind and the need to provide backup power or storage. Fortunately, with a holistic systems level view of the grid, this argument doesn’t stand up. In fact, large and abrupt changes in demand for electricity can and do adversely affect the output of conventional electric generation sources - such as grid operators facing the sudden loss of a large power plant - whereas wind output changes are typically more gradual and predictable.This is easily understood by thinking of the continuous parade of storm fronts day to day, moving generally west to east in many regions, with wind plant after wind plant in the path of these storms taking their turn to spin up and generate electricity.

Designing and maintaining a wind turbine is a challenging task, requiring close interaction between engineers of many different disciplines.The fundamental challenge in designing a wind turbine is for it to operate reliably and safely for twenty years or more; produce as much power as possible, and with the lowest possible initial and life cycle costs.

Wind turbines are often referred to as three blades on a stick.“I can understand why engineers have that perception. The reason is usually a lack of understanding of complexities and challenges involved in wind turbine design” says Clipper’s Sandeep Gupta. He relates this perception to this own personal experience.“As an engineer with aerospace background, I was in the same boat once.When I joined the University of Maryland for my doctorate program, my advisor offered me a research project on wind turbine aerodynamics. My first reaction was disappointment. However, I decided to give it a shot and that was one of the best decisions I ever made. As I got to understand the complexities of wind turbine technology and the challenges involved, I fell more and more in love with the technology.”

If we begin considering a wind turbine from the ground up, we start with the turbine foundation.Wind turbines are exposed to massive over turning moments, requiring a well designed foundation, containing thousands of yards of concrete and hundreds of tons of steel.

The tower, which transmits the turbine loads to the foundation, must meet the extreme loads and fatigue life requirements of the turbine, as well as stability requirements.The tower comprises a large portion of the cost of the wind turbine due to the large amount of steel required for fabrication, and due to the high costs required to transport the tower to the site.These costs are driving innovation in wind turbine towers, which have evolved from lattice type construction in the early days of wind, to the tubular steel construction which is most common today. Examples of newer tower technologies include concrete pre-tensioned segments; lattice towers with architectural covers, which lower transportation costs; towers with vibration damping systems that increase the fatigue life of the tower and reduce materials costs; and self-erecting tower tech nologies to reduce construction costs.Towers are also growing taller to access higher speed wind, which will require additional innovation in order to meet the load carrying and life requirements while not increasing CoE.

As we continue to move up the turbine, we come to the bedplate, typically a ductile iron casting that supports the turbine drivetrain and rotor.The bedplate is also exposed to large extreme loads and to a challenging fatigue load environment, and often must be relatively stiff to ensure the correct alignment of drivetrain components.The bedplate supports the drivetrain, which typically consists of a gearbox and a generator.

The purpose of the gearbox is to increase the speed at which the generator turns in order to reduce the cost of the generator. It is here that we begin to see the collaboration required between the mechanical engineers who design the gearbox and the electrical engineers who design the generator, as the design of each component affects the other. The higher the gearbox ratio, the higher the cost of the gearbox (with lower the reliability due to increased part count) and lower the cost of the generator.

The challenge for the design team is to produce a drivetrain system that has the lowest overall costs and highest reliability, and to recognize the effect that each component has on the balance of the system.Wind turbine drivetrain reliability has been an issue in the past, and is spurring a large amount of innovation in drivetrain topologies. Some of the latest drivetrain technologies include direct drive generators, low speed generators with a simple gearbox (a compromise between current high speed technology and direct drive technology) and hydraulic speed increasers as an alternative to a gearbox.

From the drivetrain, we move to the rotor blades, the most visible part of the turbine, and perhaps the component requiring the most interaction between engineering disciplines.A rotor blade must be as efficient as possible, quiet, and relatively insensitive to fouling from insects and dust. It must have at least a 20 year fatigue life, withstand hurricane force winds and lightning strikes, and have sufficient stiffness to avoid striking the tower under any operating condition.

Meeting these requirements requires the participation of aerodynamicists, structural analysts, materials engineers, process engineers, and controls engineers, each of whose design decisions affect those of other members of the rotor, turbine, and Wind Power Plant (WPP) design teams.

A formal coursework in wind turbine engineering in the United States has been relatively scarce until recently. University of Massachusetts,Amherst has a long history of providing formal education in wind energy. In addition to this,Texas Tech University, University of Colorado at Boulder and University of California, Davis also offer focused programs for wind energy research.With the increase in funding for basic research in wind energy and the rapid growth of wind energy, the last few years have seen a substantial increase in the number of universities offering courses focused on wind energy, making it easier for engineers to meet the challenges and reap the rewards in wind.

The growth of large utility scale wind power is fast paced and generating unprecedented demand for engineers and technicians. For those heeding the call – The technical challenges and rewards are second to none.

References

1. “Federal Electricity Subsidies: Information on Research Funding, Tax Expenditures, and Other

Activities That Support Electricity Production,” GAO, October 26, 2007.