Pirate Busters - American Shipper

TRANSPORT / INLAND
Hydro Green prepares installation of its first barge-mounted hydrokinetic
power plant in Hastings, Minn. (Photo: Hydro Green Energy)
Something is quietly stirring in the river
water at Hastings, Minn., just downstream
from the Army Corps of Engineers’ Lock
and Dam No. 2. While it’s not a strange
creature lurking in the depths, it is a new
sight to the waterway’s users.
Earlier this year, Houston-based Hydro
Green Energy installed the first of
two barge-mounted hydrokinetic power
plants. The second unit is expected to
enter service next spring.
Hydrokinetic power refers to the generation
of electricity from moving water
without dams or diversionary structures
typically used at conventional hydropower
plants. Hydro Green’s unit will produce
100 kilowatts of uninterrupted power,
which will feed back to the electric grid.
After extensive testing by the company,
the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission signed off on the project
in Hastings in December.
The Corps plays a major role in
evaluating and approving these types of
projects. The agency must ensure that any
proposed hydropower-generation equipment
doesn’t hurt the environment or
impede barge traffic. “Anytime we have
the opportunity where we’re not altering
our flows and capacity, it’s something we
like to do,” said Mike Ensch, the agency’s
chief of operations and regulatory.
Hydropower has been added at Corps
dams by local utilities over the years,
such as Canyon and Lewisville, Texas,
42 AMERICAN SHIPPER: OCTOBER 2009
In the depths
Hydrokinetic power plants operate below barge traffic.
and Bluestone, W.Va. Other facilities are
underway by AMP-Ohio at the Smithland
and Cannelton locks and dams, with three
more planned. These facilities were built
on the river banks along the lock and dam
spillways, Ensch said.
Suspended or anchored hydrokinetic
equipment takes advantage of free-flowing
river currents. While the concept is
quite ancient, it has recently become part
of the country’s efforts to develop nonfossil
fuel-based energy sources, such
as wind, solar, biomass and geothermal.
Hydro Green plans to develop hydrokinetic
projects across more than a
dozen states for a total of 500 megawatts
of power.
Other firms are seeking federal approval
to install their own hydrokinetic
equipment in U.S. waterways. Free Flow
Power of Gloucester, Mass., has received
55 FERC permits to conduct tests at Mississippi
River sites between St. Louis and
Plaquemines, La.
Free Flow’s 1.4- and 3-meter-diameter
machines, which resemble wind turbine
blades contained within an open-ended
cylindrical shell, would be attached
several at a time to underwater pylons
well below surface barge traffic.
In a 2007 policy statement, FERC
estimated that hydrokinetic technologies,
combined with the existing hydropower
capacity, could eventually produce 20
percent of the country’s electric supply.
of coal by the time the Greenup lock was
reopened. The Corps estimated that if the
lower gate at Greenup had failed, the main
chamber would have been closed six months
with delays costing the industry upwards
of $75 million.
Mike Ensch, chief
of operations and
regulatory for the
Corps, said the agency
does its best to notify
shippers and barge
operators as far in
advance as possible
to allow them to build
Ensch
sufficient stockpiles of materials. The
Corps provides a composite maintenance
schedule for the next three years, which it
makes available to the industry on its Web
site, he said.
High Demand. Over the years, the
Corps has generally had a good relationship
with the waterways industry. “We have a
good rapport at the local level. I think the
industry knows we try,” Ensch said.
The Corps continues to make upgrades
on locks and dams throughout the inland
waterway system. One of the largest modernization
projects includes the construction
of a new dam with twin 1,200-foot locks
at Olmsted. The agency recently finished
erecting a second 1,200-foot chamber at
McAlpine Locks and Dam. Both structures
are located on the Ohio River.
The agency is also constructing 1,200-
foot chambers at the Kentucky Lock on the
Tennessee River and at the Inner Harbor
Lock on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway at
New Orleans. Other projects are underway
in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Tennessee.
Together, this ongoing work represents
an investment of more than $7.2 billion in
inland waterways modernization that will
be completed over the next 10 to 20 years,
depending on the availability of funds, the
Corps noted.
The bigger lock sites are important to
the shipping industry. At the smaller lock
sites, barge operators must “cut” their 12-
to 15-barge tows in half to accommodate
the 600-foot-long passages. This procedure
causes long queues for tows waiting their
turn to move through the lock. In addition,
the delays cost the industry hundreds of
millions of dollars a year.
Other critical projects are authorized or
under study on the Upper Mississippi River
and Illinois Waterway, Ohio River, the Gulf
Intracoastal Waterway, and the McClellan-
Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System.
Corps officials said over the next few years,
these studies will identify navigation and
environmental actions needed to support