It is vital to appreciate where your most basic resources come from, simply for the sake of being conscious of the world you live in. But even if you don’t relish consciousness for its own sake, there are certain resources you can’t get away with not knowing about and still be able to understand urgent topics of public debate.

Until recently, I believed the whole process of generating electricity to be an unapproachable enigma, and even the call to appreciate my world didn’t motivate me to research it. Now I just need to understand concretely what people are talking about when they discuss renewable energy, carbon emissions from power plants and the increasingly greener source of Whitman’s electricity. But I can only begin to sort these things out once I know the basics about how power generation works in my neighborhood.

The basic consideration regarding power generation is the source of the energy that moves the power generator. For Pacific Power, from whom Whitman and residents of Walla Walla purchase their electricity, there are three ways of generating electricity: thermal power (coal and natural gas), hydro power and wind power.

Pacificorp, the electric company of which Pacific Power is part, owns power plants in several Western states that produce electricity for customers in the region.

According to Pacificorp spokesman Dave Kvamme, the power we use on the Whitman campus could come from as far away as Utah, Wyoming, Montana or the dams in Western Washington and Oregon, and some of it certainly comes from the wind power projects a few miles down Highway 12. Pacificorp also purchases 20 percent of the power it distributes from various government-owned sources, such as from dams along the Colombia and Snake rivers owned by the Bonneville Power Administration.

When Kvamme told me how spread out these sources are and how many miles of long-distance transmission line (over 15,000) Pacificorp uses to transmit power across states, I had to ask why power plants aren’t more localized. Doesn’t it take more energy to transmit electricity that far? Kvamme pointed out that while there can be line losses over long distances, it is more energy efficient to keep the power plants closer to the fuel source. If Pacificorp had to ship coal to a plant in Walla Walla rather than transmit electricity from the original source of the coal, even more energy would be used.

Pacificorp owns 13 thermal power plants and is a partial owner of six, from which it produces most of its electricity. Pacificorp plants are collectively capable of generating 8,500 megawatts of electricity at one time, 72 percent of which is fueled by coal and natural gas. To put this figure in perspective, 8,500 megawatts would provide electricity for 85 million light bulbs.

Thermal power generation works by burning coal or natural gas to spin a turbine. In coal-fueled plants, coal is pulverized and burned in a furnace to boil water, and the pressure from the steam spins the turbine. The spinning turbine connects to a generator, which turns magnets to induce AC power. In the case of natural gas-fueled plants, the heat from the burning gas does not create steam, but powers and turns the turbine directly.
All forms of power generation rely on spinning turbines, but only thermal plants use carbon-emitting fuels to turn them. Pacificorp also relies on energy from hydropower and wind power facilities, which eventually connect to the same power grid as electricity from thermal sources. Five percent of Pacificorp’s total output comes from hydropower facilities and one to two percent comes from wind power.

The breakdown of Pacificorp’s energy resources is fairly comparable to that of the U.S. as a whole. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists Web site, nearly 50 percent of electricity generated in 2004 was fueled by coal and 18 percent by natural gas, while 6.5 percent came from hydropower and 2.3 percent from other renewables. Pacificorp does not own nuclear power plants, which made up 20 percent of total electricity produced in the U.S. in 2004.

Pacificorp is trying aggressively to market and produce more wind power, which is the aim of the Blue Sky program in which Whitman currently participates. Participants purchase power generated by wind sources for an additional $1.95 per 100 kilowatt-hour block. The additional money funds further development of wind power generators.

The wind sources for our power region are located closer to Whitman compared with many of the thermal plants. Our wind power comes from Pacificorp wind facilities in Umatilla and Walla Walla County; Gilliam County, Ore.; Kennewick, Wash.; Arlington, Wyo. and Evanston, Wyo.
When asked what percentage of Pacificorp’s total electricity could feasibly come from renewable sources in the near future, Kvamme said that there is an optimal amount of renewable energy that can be integrated, but that “having too much wind power works against you; the wind doesn’t always blow.” Kvamme said that Pacificorp is aiming to increase the generating capacity of its wind facilities to 1,400 megawatts by 2015. But in order to meet the demand of energy consumers, power companies need to have a more reliable source than the fickle wind. “Not in my lifetime do I see coal and natural gas going away,” Kvamme said.