Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 2-2

2 Chicago Tribune Business Section 2 Friday, December 8, 2017 Solar energy to shine at oil field Project will turn water to steam to extract crude By Chris Mooney The Washington Post The Belridge oil field near Bakersfield, is one of the largest in the country. It has been producing oil for more than a century and last year produced around 76,000 barrels a day, according to operator Aera Energy. Now the oil field is about to become even more remarkable. Its future production will be powered partly by a massive solar-energy project to make the extraction process more environmentally friendly, according to Aera and Glass-Point Solar, the firm that will create the solar project. The Belridge field was discovered in 1911.

Oil from the field flowed out of the ground because of natural pressure in the geologic reservoirs. Later, as the pressure declined, many companies said the field was exhausted. The field gained new life in the 1960s through a process known as enhanced oil recovery. But squeezing more crude oil from the Belridge requires large amounts of steam to loosen the heavy crude, which in turn requires energy- Traditionally, Aera used natural gas to heat water to create steam. Now Aera and GlassPoint will use a large, 850-megawatt solar thermal array to evaporate the water that's pumped into the ground to liberate more oil.

The companies say this will offset 4.87 billion cubic feet of natural gas per year and avoid the emission of 376,000 tons of carbon. The water used emerges from the process of oil extraction itself and will be recycled and pumped back into the ground. The project was made possible by the recent ex Future production at the Belridge oil field near Bakersfield, among the largest in the country, will be powered partly by AERA ENERGY a massive solar project. power oil-field operations. The project should start operations by 2020, the participating companies said.

This is the second such megascale solar-oil project for GlassPoint, which is building the massive, 1-giga-watt Miraah project in Oman, on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula. (A giga-watt refers to the capacity to instantaneously generate 1 billion watts of electricity; a megawatt refers to the capacity to generate 1 million watts.) The Belridge project will be California's largest solar project, the firm said. "From the day we start operating, Aera will see an enormous reduction in the amount of gas they consume in a given day," said Ben Bierman, chief operating officer and acting CEO of GlassPoint Solar. The combination of massive solar and massive oil is not what comes to mind when it comes to the global expansion of renewables, which generally has been led by wind and solar installations. But joint projects of various types between major oil producers and renewable energy players are growing, too.

The Norwegian oil giant Statoil has announced plans to build solar arrays in Brazil with a clean-energy industry partner and made a major push into offshore wind energy; Shell is exploring a large solar project in Australia What's different about the Belridge project is the use of renewables, which don't emit greenhouse gases, to produce more fuel that will emit those gases. That could leave environmentalists feeling rather ambiguous. But this, too, has parallels a recent major carbon-capture and storage project in Texas will capture most of the carbon dioxide emitted by a major coal facility, then pipe the gas in a liquid form to an oil field where it will, once again, be used in enhanced oil recovery. What these examples show perhaps most of all is that as renewable energy becomes more and more a part of our lives, it will also become increasingly integrated into more traditional energy systems. From an environmental perspective, Aera-Glass-Point project is a "good step," said Simon Mui, director of California vehicles and fuels for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy nonprofit.

But Mui, who tension of California's cap-and-trade system for carbon-dioxide emissions to 2030, said Christina Sistrunk, chief executive of Aera Energy, a company jointly controlled by Shell and Exxon Mobil. "We need some level of what I would call regulatory and legislative stability to be able to fund projects that really need a couple of decades worth of certainty to be economic," Sistrunk said. "The extension of that program really underpinned our ability to make this long-term commitment." The solar thermal array will capture the sun's energy using curving mirrors that are enclosed in a greenhouse, then use that energy to heat water. A smaller, 26.5-megawatt solar photovoltaic installation will help Wall Street's biggest banks and clearinghouses, sent a letter to the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, saying that as the guarantors of customers' trades, they should have been consulted before trading in bitcoin futures was approved. They expressed concern that the extreme volatility tied into bitcoin could leave clearinghouses exposed when the futures move too violently.

The frenzy of interest Bitcoin price soars, then plunges, in volatile day iin 'rr IB Mr- 5 8 rS5 Bitcoin, from Page 7 Futures allow for the shorting of bitcoin that is, betting that the price of bitcoin will go down which is difficult to near impossible to do. With the currency's tremendous runup in price in recent days, it could become a target for those who doubt that it deserves its current value. The Futures Industry Association, which represents PHIL VELASQUEZCHICAGO TRIBUNE The GGP building was once the Morton Salt Co. headquarters. It may be demolished.

51-story tower needs federal OK said his group had not yet fully evaluated that project, noted a distinction between reducing emissions from "fossil fuel infrastructure," which the current project would do, and a more long-term project of reducing the emissions from transportation as a whole by substituting battery-powered vehicles or other technologies for cars that run on oil. "I think it's a false solution to think you can only do one or the other," Mui said. "And I think the state policies are looking to do two things: one is accelerate the transition to electric-drive technologies and other alternative sources, as well as to clean up the existing fossil-fuel infrastructure. You kind of have to do both to meet both state and global air-quality and greenhouse -gas targets." a regulatory specialist with the Army Corps of Engineers, said "adverse effect" cases are common on other types of projects, such as highway construction, but that the riverfront development is the first of its kind to be reviewed for "adverse effect" by the Chicago office's regulatory branch. Because there is no way to redevelop the site without demolishing the existing building, the agency must determine whether the developers' proposed mitigation or other potential steps are sufficient to allow the development to continue, Murphy said.

"If there isn't any alternative (to demolition), the next step is to mitigate for the adverse impact," Murphy said. "Now we need to find out what the public thinks." Public comments will be accepted through Dec. 14. On Dec. 15, the developers and the Army Corps of Engineers will meet to begin creating a memorandum of agreement for mitigation.

Murphy declined to say the likelihood of the building being preserved and the development stopped. "We know the developer is on a timeline, so we're trying to do this as quickly as possible, while still fulfilling the requirements of the law," he said. wrichicagotribune.com Twitter Ryan-Ori and the rapid rise in the price of bitcoin has put significant strain on the major bitcoin exchanges. Coinbase, the largest bit-coin exchange, at one point tweeted that record-high traffic had caused interruptions to its service. Bitfinex, which trades several digital currencies including bitcoin, tweeted out that it had suffered an unusual surge in traffic the last few days.

Bitcoin is the world's most popular virtual currency. Such currencies are not tied to a bank or government and allow users to spend money anonymously. They are basically lines of computer code that are digitally signed each time they are traded. A debate is raging on the merits of such currencies. Some say they serve merely to facilitate money laundering and illicit, anonymous payments.

Others say they can be helpful methods of payment, such as in crisis situations where national currencies have collapsed. Miners of bitcoins and other virtual currencies help keep the systems honest by having their computers keep a global running tally of transactions. That prevents cheaters from spending the same digital coin twice. Online security is a vital concern for such dealings. In Japan, following the failure of a bitcoin exchange called Mt.

Gox, new laws were enacted to regulate bitcoin and other virtual currencies. Mt. Gox shut down in February 2014, saying it lost about 850,000 bitcoins, possibly to hackers. Earlier Thursday, Nice-Hash, a company that mines bitcoins on behalf of customers, said it is investigating a breach that may have resulted in the theft of about $70 million worth of bit-coin. The Washington Post Ori, from Page 7 Goettsch Partners.

But they still need approval from the Army Corps because the project would include building a stormwater outfall structure, which is essentially a hole cut in the seawall to allow rainwater to flow from the tower's roof into the river. "The 110 North Wacker building project was the subject of an eight month public process leading to the granting of full zoning approval from the city of Chicago," the developers said in an emailed statement "To date, we have worked with the City Planning Department, Alderman (Brendan) Reilly and others to maximize the open public space, and architectural benefits for the city. We have been working through the permitting process with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other statutory authorities and look forward to working collaboratively to deliver this exciting new building in the heart of Chicago." The developers declined to comment beyond the statement. During a review of the project, the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency in August determined the building's architecture makes it eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, creating an "adverse effect" if it were to be demolished, according to the public notice.

The building, designed by Graham, Anderson, Probst and White, is an example of Mid-Century Modern architecture, according to the documents. The $4 million building opened in 1958 as the headquarters of Morton Salt Co. The building has long turned heads because of its low-slung size, dwarfed by a row of modern Wacker Drive towers. Morton Salt moved out in 1990, and the building remained vacant until General Growth Properties, now known as GGP, moved its headquarters there in 1997. With the impending demolition, GGP has signed a lease to move its headquarters in early 2018 to the former Apparel Center, now called River North Point.

Curbed Chicago first reported the "adverse effect" federal review. After being made aware of the federal review, the developers have proposed "conducting a survey of the structure and documenting it," creating a Illinois Historic Preservation Agency report made available to the public and filed with the city of Chicago and the Illinois State Museum, according to the public notice. It's unclear how likely the review is to delay or even end plans to redevelop the site. Michael Murphy,.