Sundance#4 went offline at 03:59 Sunday and came back online at 10:29 Monday.
A commentary in the journal Nature by one of the world’s top climate scientists says emissions from Alberta’s oilsands are unlikely to make a big difference to global warming. Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria and a colleague calculated that if all the hydrocarbons in the oilsands were consumed, the carbon dioxide released would raise global temperatures by about zero-point-3-6 degrees. His paper concludes that burning all the globe’s vast coal deposits would create a 15-degree increase in temperature. He says his analysis suggests it is an increased dependence on coal — not the oilsands — that governments have to worry about.
Mustus Energy has selected Lockheed Martin to build a new 41.5MW biomass power plant in Alberta. Lockheed Martin will support Mustus in procuring materials, equipment and other required services, and it will also manage the construction of the power plant. The power plant is expected to commence commercial operations by the fall of 2013 and will provide base-load electricity to the Alberta grid.
A Carmel not-for-profit that monitors the electric grid in 11 states and Canada has revealed to federal regulators that a mechanical failure caused more than $11 million in damages to the high-tech facility. In a Feb. 7 public filing, the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator Inc., or MISO, told the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that the data center became contaminated in September. MISO said a mechanical failure of an air-handling unit in the facility damaged information technology equipment, in addition to the physical structure of the data center.