A2
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2019
Southern Oregon residents wary of an energy-storing lake
to his operation. His truck
crunches over a snow-cov-
ered red cinder farm road
past wheeled sprinkler struc-
tures, called pivots, that
stand dormant in his snowy
fi elds.
“They’re going to take (a)
300-foot swath out of 13 of
our pivot fi elds. So our sprin-
kler systems won’t work
anymore with the power
lines. They’ll hit the poles,”
he says.
Either Jespersen will have
to reconfi gure his sprinkler
system or he’ll have to stop
irrigating where the poles
block the sprinkler heads.
And without irrigation in
this dry patch of Oregon, not
much grows.
“That’s why we … want
them to bury the lines,” he
said.
A project outside
Klamath Falls
By JES BURNS
Oregon Public Broadcasting
When Leonard Jespersen
thinks about the Swan Lake
North pumped hydro storage
project, he gets the feels —
but not in a good way.
“I mean everything
they’re doing burns ya,”
he says, driving his big red
pickup on his ranch and
organic alfalfa farm outside
Klamath Falls.
The energy storage proj-
ect is comprised of two inter-
connected 60-acre reser-
voirs, a powerhouse and 32
miles of new high-voltage
power lines that will connect
it to the grid.
Jespersen’s
frustration
kicked into high gear when
he saw a project map show-
ing those high-voltage power
lines running over about 7
miles of his land.
If an energy project with
power lines is approved by
the Federal Energy Regu-
latory Commission, and a
fi nancial settlement between
the project and affected land-
owner is not reached, then
the company can force the
landowner — with compen-
sation — to allow the use of
the necessary land through
eminent domain.
Jespersen’s
concerned
about property values, his
views and a fi nancial hit
Pumped hydro storage
To understand pumped
hydro storage, all you really
need to understand is how
rechargeable batteries work.
Consumers charge cell-
phones when they have
access to an electrical power
outlet, so the battery can
power phones when con-
sumers don’t.
Imagine if that battery
was a huge reservoir of
water, high on a hill. That’s
the idea behind the Swan
Lake North pumped hydro
storage project.
Project
backer
Rye
Development is awaiting
fi nal approval from federal
Jes Burns/Oregon Public Broadcasting
Rye Development plans to build a new pumped hydro energy storage facility at this site.
regulators to build power
lines and two 60-acre res-
ervoirs: one that’s high on a
ridge and the other far below.
When electricity is plenti-
ful and cheap, the facility
will pump water up to the
higher reservoir — essen-
tially charging the battery.
Then when demand rises, the
water will be released down-
hill over turbines to gener-
ate electricity that can be
sold back to the grid. And
because demand is high, so,
too, is the price that electric-
ity gets sold for.
The capacity of the proj-
ect is 393 megawatts —
enough to meet the instanta-
neous demand of 290,000 to
390,000 homes.
Federal energy regulators’
decision on the project is
expected by the end of April.
Pumped hydro storage
projects are reviving an older
technology that’s been made
new again by the renewable
energy boom.
“We haven’t built a new
one of these in the U.S. since
the early 1980s,” said Rye
Development’s Erik Steimle.
Most of the early pumped
hydro projects were tied to
nuclear power plants, which
ideally generated electric-
ity at sustained rates, even
if there wasn’t immediate
demand for the power from
consumers. When demand
was low, the plants would
use the excess power to
charge the hydro battery.
With variable renew-
able energy, like solar and
wind, the need for storage
is similar. For those renew-
able goals to become reality,
there’s going to need to be
electricity storage on the grid
that can bank power when
it’s sunny or windy and then
release it when it isn’t.
“A great example is there
are large amounts of daily
solar oversupply that can-
not be utilized fully in Cali-
fornia,” said Steimle. “And
we’re going to continue to
see that increase as time goes
on. So the trade-off is we can
curtail that and not deliver it
or we can store it.”
Adding energy storage to
the grid is one of the only
ways to meet the renewable
energy goals set forth by
Western states.
Oregon aims to get to 50
percent renewable electricity
production by 2040. Califor-
nia’s goal is 100 percent by
2045. Washington’s target is
15 percent by next year, but
its L egislature is currently
considering increasing that
to 100 percent renewables
within 25 years.
“As we move towards
a grid that’s 100 percent
renewable energy, we need
to invest in energy stor-
age infrastructure to meet
the region’s energy capacity
needs,” Steimle said.
In addition, Oregon
Department of Energy ana-
lyst Rebecca Smith said both
Oregon and California have
grid storage mandates that
are helping drive investment
in storage projects. The Ore-
gon Legislature is also con-
sidering a new carbon reg-
ulation program called cap
and trade.
“If Oregon were to pass
cap and trade … that would
be yet another driver that
would further incentivize
storage solutions because it
would allow us to use more
of that renewable energy,”
Smith said.
FIVE-DAY FORECAST FOR ASTORIA
TONIGHT
SATURDAY
SUNDAY
MONDAY
56
38
39
Mostly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
TUESDAY
64
45
67
46
66
45
Partly sunny and mild
Mild with plenty of sun
Mostly sunny and mild
Permanent daylight saving in
Oregon? ‘Hell yes,’ says Brown
Associated Press
ALMANAC
REGIONAL WEATHER
Shown is tomorrow's weather. Temperatures are tonight's lows and tomorrow's highs.
ASTORIA
39/56
Astoria through Thursday.
Temperatures
High/low ....................................... 51°/35°
Normal high/low ........................... 54°/39°
Record high ............................ 80° in 1926
Record low ............................. 27° in 1969
Tillamook
39/59
Salem
38/61
Newport
41/54
Sunset tonight ........................... 7:21 p.m.
Sunrise Saturday ........................ 7:27 a.m.
Moonrise today .......................... 1:02 p.m.
Moonset today ............................ 3:54 a.m.
Mar 20
New
Mar 27
Coos Bay
40/56
First
Apr 5
Source: Jim Todd, OMSI
TOMORROW'S TIDES
Astoria / Port Docks
Time
3:31 a.m.
4:54 p.m.
Low
3.7 ft.
0.2 ft.
City
Atlanta
Boston
Chicago
Denver
Des Moines
Detroit
El Paso
Fairbanks
Honolulu
Indianapolis
Kansas City
Las Vegas
Los Angeles
Memphis
Miami
Nashville
New Orleans
New York
Oklahoma City
Philadelphia
St. Louis
Salt Lake City
San Francisco
Seattle
Washington, DC
Hi
64
59
40
40
42
44
55
39
84
41
47
65
75
55
84
55
59
66
52
68
48
46
64
60
72
State hits pause button on chronic pain proposal
Ontario
28/58
Burns
24/53
Associated Press
Klamath Falls
26/57
Lakeview
14/50
Ashland
37/65
REGIONAL CITIES
City
Baker City
Bend
Brookings
Eugene
Ilwaco
Klamath Falls
Medford
Newberg
Newport
North Bend
Hi
47
52
58
61
55
54
66
62
54
59
Today
Lo
24
24
42
37
42
26
35
37
41
41
W
pc
s
pc
pc
pc
s
pc
pc
pc
pc
Hi
50
53
57
61
54
57
66
60
54
56
Sat.
Lo
28
28
42
39
42
28
36
38
41
40
W
pc
pc
pc
pc
c
pc
pc
c
c
pc
City
Olympia
Pendleton
Portland
Roseburg
Salem
Seaside
Spokane
Springfi eld
Vancouver
Yakima
Hi
60
45
61
66
62
58
43
63
61
44
Today
Lo
33
26
40
39
38
40
24
37
37
24
W
pc
pc
pc
pc
pc
pc
pc
pc
pc
pc
Hi
61
46
61
66
61
56
47
62
60
45
daylight saving time would
have to be approved by
Congress.
Brown noted that this
was one of the few issues
where she agrees with Pres-
ident Donald Trump. The
president tweeted earlier
this week that daylight sav-
ing time year-round would
be “OK with me!”
Sat.
Lo
36
30
40
40
39
41
28
37
38
26
W
c
pc
c
pc
c
c
pc
pc
c
pc
BEND — Oregon health
offi cials have delayed con-
sideration of a controversial
change under the Oregon
Health Plan that could have
forced many patients with
chronic pain off opioids.
The Bulletin reported that
while chronic-pain patients
cheered the development as
a sign the agency wanted to
back off the proposal, early
indications suggest the plan
may still proceed.
The proposal was sched-
uled to be considered by the
Health Evidence Review
Commission on Thursday.
But Oregon Health Author-
ity director Patrick Allen
asked for more time to
allow the agency to review
a potential confl ict of inter-
est that arose with a con-
sultant who had worked on
the proposal.
The proposal under con-
sideration would estab-
lish new coverage under
the Oregon Health Plan
for fi ve chronic pain con-
ditions that have not been
covered in the past. That
would allow patients with
those conditions to receive
opioid and nonopioid med-
ications, as well as a range
of
nonpharmacological
services.
But the proposed pol-
icy has been controversial
because of initial language
that would have forced
patients with those condi-
tions to be tapered off of
opioids within a year.
TOMORROW'S NATIONAL WEATHER
NATIONAL CITIES
Today
Lo
40
45
27
17
24
30
38
26
64
28
28
47
53
35
70
33
50
43
30
44
31
28
45
41
45
Baker
24/50
Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2019
Tonight's Sky: Mercury at inferior solar conjunction.
High
8.4 ft.
7.1 ft.
La Grande
26/52
Roseburg
39/66
Brookings
41/59
Apr 12
John Day
28/55
Bend
24/53
Medford
35/66
UNDER THE SKY
Time
9:23 a.m.
11:27 p.m.
Prineville
24/55
Lebanon
37/61
Eugene
37/61
SUN AND MOON
Last
Pendleton
26/46
The Dalles
31/48
Portland
40/61
Precipitation
Thursday .......................................... 0.00"
Month to date ................................... 1.34"
Normal month to date ....................... 3.49"
Year to date .................................... 13.93"
Normal year to date ........................ 20.88"
Full
SALEM — Gov. Kate
Brown endorsed a growing
movement to make daylight
saving time permanent.
When asked if she was in
favor of a proposal to abol-
ish the yearly time shift, the
Democrat told reporters on
Thursday: “Hell yes!”
“I think everyone’s done
with the time change,” she
added.
Washington state and
California are also consid-
ering shifting to a perma-
nent daylight saving time.
Florida became the fi rst
state to approve such a
change.
Any state law extending
W
t
sh
sn
s
pc
sh
pc
pc
s
c
pc
s
s
s
pc
pc
c
t
s
t
pc
s
s
pc
c
Hi
59
49
40
42
47
38
52
39
83
43
55
71
79
56
84
55
58
50
59
52
50
51
64
60
54
Sat.
Lo
40
31
28
20
29
23
38
27
67
29
30
51
55
37
69
32
49
32
35
32
35
31
48
44
35
Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
W
s
pc
pc
s
pc
c
c
pc
s
s
s
s
s
s
pc
s
sh
pc
s
pc
s
s
pc
c
s
MONDAY
Ecola Creek Watershed Council, 4:30 p.m., City Hall, 163 E. Gower St., Cannon Beach.
Astoria City Council, 7 p.m., City Hall, 1095 Duane St.
LOTTERIES
Thursday’s Lucky Lines: 02-
08-10-14-FREE-20-24-26-30
Estimated jackpot: $22,000
OREGON
Thursday’s Pick 4:
1 p.m.: 7-5-7-6
4 p.m.: 0-9-3-9
7 p.m.: 2-6-7-0
10 p.m.: 2-2-9-3
Weather (W): s-sunny, pc-partly cloudy, c-cloudy,
sh-showers, t-thunderstorms, r-rain, sf-snow fl urries,
sn-snow, i-ice.
WASHINGTON
Thursday’s Daily Game:
5-3-4
Thursday’s Keno: 04-06-09-
10-12-16-18-19-28-30-33-44-
45-46-48-51-56-60-75-77
Thursday’s Match 4: 01-04-
07-22
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