Gaslight Era: Storing Coal Gas

Great post on AllOverAlbany about Troy's Gasholder Building.

Pipeline Check

The Record: Pipeline check planned at generating project

The Empire Generating Project will be conducting a planned check on the project’s pipeline beginning on Sunday at 6 a.m. and continuing until Monday at 6 a.m.

The pipeline extends from the project site at 75 Riverside Ave. in Rensselaer to the metering station off of Route 9J in Schodack.

The First Light Power web site is down at the moment, but you can read more about Empire Generating in this earlier post: Empire Generating Project Construction

Blogger Complains About Port Security

Despite his spin on why he was asked to leave the power plant construction site, I doubt "terrorism" was the issue. Descriptions and photos of the Empire Generating project are freely published.

T-U Blog - Outdoors: Rensselaer: safe from terrorists

If any terrorists are thinking about doing … well, something to the piles of scrap, chain-link fences and abandoned industrial fields of the Port of Rensselaer, think again.

UPDATE: Outdoors: Rensselaer follow-up

Just for the record, the public is welcome to come by and take pictures of the power plant now under construction in Rensselaer, the builder said. In fact, with advanced notice, tours of the site are even possible.

Empire Generating Project Construction

Troy Record: Project generating power, jobs [Story and photo gallery]

RENSSELAER — In the summer of 2010, a once-vacant industrial site will jolt back to life to the tune of roughly 650 megawatts.

That’s how much power the Empire Generating Project, located on Riverside Avenue on the site of the old BASF plant, will be able to create once its massive turbines — and their equally colossal components — are up and running.

These images show the scale of some of the components: Construction Photos - April, 2009. Here is a PDF of their Project Timeline.

For inquiries about full time positions at Empire Generating, e-mail Careers@firstlightpower.com. Recruiting for these opportunities will begin sometime during the 3rd quarter of 2009. Current jobs (found on their Project Summary page - may be old):

• Manager - Environmental/Health and Safety
• Manager - Finance, Accounting and Administration

Contractor CH2M HILL lists the following job openings:

• Lead Mechanical Startup Manager, Rensselaer, NY, 05/11/2009
• Assistant StartUp & Commissioning Manager, Rensselaer, NY, 02/09/2009
• Start Up Field Engineer, Rensselaer, NY , 01/28/2009

(The Record article only mentions CH2M Hill's subsidiary, LG Constructors, which is doing the construction on the Besicorp/Empire project.)


UPDATE:

Daily Freeman: Power plant that town of Ulster rejected will be running in Rensselaer next summer

Times Union: Power plant in full swing

The "first fire" -- when the turbines will be fired up with natural gas -- will be in mid-February, with a completion date expected by mid-July next year.

1000 MW of Wind

Press Release: NYISO Marks Wind Power Milestone

Total output reaches 1,000 megawatts

Rensselaer, N.Y. – The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) recently observed a milestone in the expansion of wind power generation in New York. At 6:00 pm on February 19, 2009, the combined total output of all wind plants in New York reached 1,000 megawatts (MW).
...
At the time when wind output reached 1,000 MW, it provided nearly 5% of the roughly 21,000 MW of total system demand.

Choose renewable power for your home at National Grid by choosing a provider like Community Energy, EnviroGen, Green Mountain Energy, or Sterling Planet.

Transmission Towers as Art

I took a drive around the port last weekend, and was intrigued by the power transmission towers for the Empire Generating project. I think they're kind of appealing, and I wondered whether with a little more effort and imagination, the power company could make them almost like sculpture.

It turns out they do exactly that in Finland, where a team of designers led by Antti Nurmesniemi used color, structure and lighting to make their power transmission lines into landscape elements.

Check out some very cool photos of the Landscape Towers of Fingrid Oyj - it's well worth a look. These are "Blue Cranes" . =>

To learn more, here's an article from Transmission and Distribution World: Poles & Structures Transmission Structures As Landscape Art.

February 20, 1909 - New Power House

100 Years Ago Today: From The Rensselaer Eagle [NY 41 Rensselaer 93-32173].

ALBANY & HUDSON'S NEW POWER HOUSE IS NEARLY READY

COMPANY WILL HAVE AMPLE POWER FOR ITS BUSINESS AFTER APRIL 15TH

Has Made Many Improvements and Will Spend About $80,000 -- Better Lights, power and Train Service Soon to Come

The power troubles of the Albany and Hudson Railway Co. will be all over in the early spring and then the people of Rensselaer will not only get better street lights but those who use the company's power are promised better service in every way.

For the past eight months the company has had a hard time to get enough power, principally due to the fact that when the company began business it depended to a large extent on hydraulic power from Stuyvesant Falls. The unprecedented drought, however, caused the company serious loss and no end of trouble.

To obviate this it is now spending some $80,000 on betterments. As is generally known the Stuyvesant Falls power house is a combination hydraulic and steam plant... The present plan of improvement is to discontinue the use of the smallest steam engine and install one 1000 K. W. turbo-generator and one 1500 K. W. Frequency Changer set, these machines being the most recent design and most efficient in operation produced by the General Electric Co. of Schenectady.

In 2009 dollars, this upgrade was about $1.9M. Even before the 1909 upgrade, the plant powered 97 miles of third-rail electric train and supplied current for power and lighting.

Back in April 2008, the Business Review ran this article about Albany Engineering Corporation's plans for the historic power plant:

Albany Engineering buys Stuyvesant Falls hydro plant for $210K
...
When fully operational, the plant will generate 3,500 kilowatts of power, enough for about 3,500 homes. The renewable energy produced at the station is expected to save 10,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually.

January 16, 1909 - Electric Light

100 Years Ago Today: From The Rensselaer Eagle [NY 41 Rensselaer 93-32173].

Electricity For Lighting
is Economical, Safe, Convenient and Healthful.

No leakage to cause disagreeable odors, no matches, good or bad, no broken mantles or chimneys. In fact, none of the bad features common to other methods of lighting. Have your house wired at once. An estimate will cost you nothing.

W. F. Sanderson 1423 Broadway, Rensselaer

As you can see from this 1909 advertisement, the light bulb was about to replace gas lighting in local homes.

As the technology emerged in the late 1880's, a huge "War of the Currents" took place between the developers of Alternating Current (AC) and Direct Current (DC). Thomas Edison, whose business success was built on DC technology, went so far as to publicly electrocute animals and commission the invention of the electric chair, all to discourage the adoption of AC power.

Lavish lighting displays were tourist attractions at events like the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The Expo's illuminated buildings were powered by George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla's AC system. (Their bid came in at half the cost of General Electric's DC technology.)

The low voltage of DC meant it couldn't be transmitted more than a mile or so. The multitude of transmission wires was the largest cost of the system when Edison's Pearl Street Station was established in Manhattan. (image of NYC wires from Great Blizzard of 1888).

The 1901 Pan American Exposition in Buffalo was powered by the new Tesla generators at the Niagara Falls Power Company, effectively demonstrating that AC could economically deliver electricity across many miles.

MWK Biogas

I noticed a press release which fits well with the other "energy" postings of the past week. MWK Biogas North America Corp. of Rensselaer is the US branch of a German company. They market "digester" systems which harvest biogas from manure and other organic feedstocks, generating electricity and heat via anaerobic fermentation.

Their technology is said to produce 1.2-1.3 kW per cow. According to a recent article about a proposed greenhouse gas tax on farm animals, New York State has about 627,000 dairy cows. That's a lot of energy waiting to be captured - about 750-800 megawatts. For comparison, Maple Ridge Wind Farm in Lowville produces 320 MW of electricity with 195 turbines, which they claim is enough to power 160,000 average New York homes.

The article Farm Digesters For Small Dairies In Vermont tells how "Cow Power" provides renewable energy from dairy farm "output", as well as from other organic waste like whey from the Ben & Jerry's ice cream factory.

Empire Generating Co.

Here are a few links showing construction progress for the generating plant at 75 Riverside Ave. in Rensselaer, NY. Empire Generating Co. LLC maintains a project office at 152 Broadway in Rensselaer, and their hours are 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Tuesdays, and 12 p.m.-6 p.m. Thursdays.

Construction Photos from FirstLight Power Resources, September 2008 (see also their Empire Generating Co. Project Summary).

Recent Aerial Photos by Chris Milian (www.photosfromonhigh.com), uploaded to Flickr during October and November 2008

From The Independent, 11/18/08: Work continues on power plant

RENSSELAER: Crews are installing natural gas pipelines along Route 9J (River Road) in the Village of Castleton to supply a new 635-megawatt power plant currently under construction in the city.

From the Business Review, 3/5/08: Empire Generating expects to break ground on $700M plant next week

The plant is scheduled to open in late 2009 and have a $290 million economic impact on the region over 20 years ... Construction of the $700 million plant will generate 550 union jobs; once opened, the plant will employ 20 workers.

E. Albany Gas Light

From the Times Union last week: Old industrial site tested for pollution

Representatives for National Grid and the state Department of Environmental Conservation are working at the site near the corner of Huyck Square and Washington Street where a manufactured gas plant stood more than 100 years ago. ... The East Albany Gas Light Co. once sat on the property. It began operation sometime between 1860 and 1887 and ceased operations around 1925.

To learn more about the DEC's cleanup efforts for such sites, you can read: New York State’s Approach to the Remediation of Former Manufactured Gas Plant Sites.

Gas lighting transformed people's lives in the 1800's, providing illumination for industry and the home. By the end of the 19th century, almost a thousand US companies were making gas from coal, and this "town gas" was widely used for lighting, heating, and cooking. Manufactured gas was eventually replaced by natural gas, as the pipeline infrastructure was built.

If you have historic photographs or documents relating to the East Albany Gas Light Co., please consider donating them to the city historian - they have no info. in the City Hall research room. From the report of a NYS factory inspection I learned that the E. Albany Gas Light Co. was generating both electric and gas light by 1899, and employed 3 men working a 60 hour week.

In 1909, the E. Albany Gas Light Co. merged into the Albany Southern Railroad Co., along with several small light/electric companies, the Albany & Greenbush Bridge Co., and the Albany & Hudson Railroad (a novel third-rail electrical railway between Rensselaer and Hudson). In 1912, the Albany Southern Railroad owned all the gas and electric light plants in Rensselaer and Hudson.

Coal gasification has become a hot topic again. The US Department of Energy is pushing the environmental benefits. GE Energy has a test plant in Schenectady, and many sites use their gasification technology.