Designers find ways to tap wind power almost anywhere

A gizmag post, Power Flowers to domesticate wind turbines, explores the potential of the product of a Dutch design house, Nl Architects, to tap wind power closer to where it is needed.

While most of us will offer strong vocal backing for the construction of wind farms, that can soon change if someone suggests building one nearby. As a result, the tri-blade towers get exiled to the middle of nowhere – or even further away. Instead of having a few high performance giants scattered throughout the land, NL Architects proposes a structure that would bring a few less efficient turbines together and place them closer to the users of the power they generate.

The efficiency of the vertical-axis turbines used in this design is less than tri-bladed turbines, but more can be situated in a given location. The technology looks promising and deserves more investigation.

Accelerating Wind Power in the UK

While the US effectively twiddles its collective thumbs on the issue of offshore wind power (with installations such as Cape Wind Project in Nantucket Sound endlessly delayed), the UK is forging ahead with a massive investment in offshore wind farms. The British government has approved the building of wind farms in nine development zones capable of generating more than 32 gigawatts of power, as detailed in this article from the Environment News Service.

Justin Wilkes, policy director of the European Wind Energy Association, said the projects announced today, once built, "will multiply by 10 Europe's offshore wind energy capacity."

"These are European companies building a European industry and generating some 45,000 European jobs. It takes Europe closer to exploiting the power of our seas and developing a brand new European offshore wind industry," said Wilkes. "Offshore wind is Europe's largest untapped energy source. There is enough wind across Europe's seas to power Europe seven times over."

The power that will be generated by the developments announced today is part of the more than 100 GW of offshore wind power currently being planned by European utilities, developers, and governments, mostly in the North Sea.

Proposed projects in the US, as shown by this map created by OffshoreWind.net, show potential, but we lag significantly behind the European countries that have installed wind turbines offshore.

Derailing Wind Energy Progress

The basis of our American experiment in democracy has always been predicated on following the will of the majority while respecting the positions of the minority. As a recent Mother Jones article (Cape Wind Delay a Big Win for Dirty Energy Interests) points out, the democractic process has been turned on its ear by an unlikely alliance of oil and gas interests with a group of Native Americans who are looking to define an entire body of water as a national historic site, blocking the construction of the Cape Wind Project on Nanucket Sound.

Journalist Kate Sheppard notes:

The tribes surely have perfectly sound reasons of their own for opposing the project. "We are hoping...that we can protect the sound and our religious right to worship the rising sun and be able to pass that tradition on to our grandchildren," Green said. "The government has not honored many of the things it has promised to the Native American people...All we have is the process, and all we've asked for is due process."

That's clearly a consideration for the Department of Interior, which oversees NPS. To that end, the Interior Department recently issued a new tribal consultation policy, a long overdue effort to improve the agency's relationship with tribes.

But in the case of this particular decision on Cape Wind, granting this level of preservation to an entire body of water could be a bad omen for all future offshore wind development. Barring development here, Cape Wind president Jim Gordon told Mother Jones recently, "would have a chilling effect on what could possibly be one of the most promising sources for energy independence and creating a new green economy."

The forces aligned against renewable energy use every tactic imagineable to derail progress on the alternative energy front. In this case, the majority of the residents of Massachusetts, the state legislature, the state's congressional delegation, and the Governor, Deval Patrick, are solidly behind the Cape Wind project. The opposition is small, well-funded, and determined--undettered by what their opposition means to the future of energy development or the absolute necessity to reverse global warming. In this particular scenario, democracy isn't working very well at all.

New Wind Energy Milestone: 4,000 megawatts in Six Months

The wind-power juggernaut continues, with a promising new milestone announced by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) and reported by Consumer Reports.

AWEA CEO Denise Bode commented:

“The numbers are in, and while they show the industry has been swimming upstream, adding some 4,000 MW over the past six months, the fact is that we could be delivering so much more,” said AWEA CEO Denise Bode. “Our challenge now is to seize the historic opportunity before us to unleash this entrepreneurial force and build up an entire new industry here in the U.S. that will create jobs, avoid carbon, and strengthen our energy security. To achieve that, Congress and the Administration must pass a national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) with strong early targets.”

Among the states that added substantial new generating capacity are Texas (454 MW), Iowa (160 MW), and Missouri (146 MW). Manufacturing investment in the U.S., however, is not as strong as in other countries, such as China, according to Bodine.

Grid? We don't need no stinkin' grid. . .

Power Plant at Sunset
Originally uploaded by lady_lbrty

A recent guest post in the New York Times by Amory B. Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute speaks to a theme that is becoming increasingly prevalent in energy discussions: the advantages of distributed generation. Putting clean, small-scale power plants close to where the energy is needed makes more sense than building mammoth power plants, rebuilding the nationwide electrical grid, and then distributing electricity over hundreds of miles.

The core of the argument goes like this:

Bigger power plants’ hoped-for economies of scale were overwhelmed by diseconomies of scale. Central thermal power plants stopped getting more efficient in the 1960’s, bigger in the 1970’s, cheaper in the 1980’s, and bought in the 1990’s. Smaller units offered greater economies from mass production than big ones could gain through unit size. In the 1990’s, the cost differences between giant nuclear plants — gigantism’s last gasp — and railcar-deliverable, combined-cycle, gas-fired plants derived from mass-produced aircraft engines, created political stresses that drove the restructuring of the utility industry.

Meanwhile, generators thousands or tens of thousands of times smaller — microturbines, solar cells, fuel cells, wind turbines — started to become serious competitors, often enabled by IT and telecoms. The restructured industry exposed previously sheltered power-plant builders to brutal market discipline. Competition from a swarm of smaller electrical sources and savings created financial risks far beyond the capital markets’ appetite. Moreover, the 2008 Defense Science Board report “More Fight, Less Fuel” advised U.S. military bases to make their own power onsite, preferably from renewables, because the grid is vulnerable to long and vast disruptions.

Lower risk energy projects constructed on a human scale have a greater chance of success than past-generation mega power plants. The market is swiftly coming around to recognize this fact.

From a Fossil-Fuel to a Green Economy

From Nation videos, some thoughts on the benefits of moving from an economy based on fossil fuels to one that generates jobs though solar projects, wind energy, and energy efficiency.

Energy Tips for President Obama

A few energy tips offered by some high-profile folks to the incoming President Obama (produced by the Sierra Club)...

Turbine Recycling

A Boston Globe article, Where turbines wind up to get their second wind, tells the story of a new twist on recycling. A company in Plymouth, Massachusetts, reburbishes aging wind turbines, repairing and replacing bearing, gear boxes, and generators, as required, to meet the growing need for wind power.

Brian D. Kuhn, the cofounder of Aeronautica, aims for the mid-level market, a niche that has significant potential for growth.

"The nice thing about this midscale market that we are concentrating on is these are not huge machines," said Kuhn, who hopes his company will be able to supply turbines to power schools, homes, or even supermarkets. Already, he says, several people with local projects in the works have called seeking equipment.

With backlogs on new wind turbines hindering deployments, Kuhn has built a business around the increasing popularity of wind as an energy source.

Using Wind to Power Cars

Lester Brown calls T. Boone Pickens to task for pushing natural gas as a vehicle fuel when using wind to recharge electric cars is a much more efficient process (and far easier to implement).

Brown gives Pickens credit for the wind power side of his argument in an opinion piece for The Capital Times, but sees no sense in the natural gas advocacy. In this piece, he asks:

Why not use the wind-generated electricity to power cars directly? Natural gas is still a fossil fuel that emits climate-changing gases when burned.

Plug-in cars are here, nearly ready to market. We just need to put wind in the driver's seat. Several major auto manufacturers, including GM, Ford, Toyota and Nissan, are producing plug-in hybrids. Both Toyota and GM are committed to marketing plug-in hybrids in 2010. Toyota might even try to deliver a plug-in version of its Prius gas-electric hybrid, the bestseller whose U.S. sales match those of all other hybrids combined, next year.

GM is in the game, too, with its Chevrolet Volt. This plug-in car is essentially an electric car with an auxiliary gasoline engine that generates electricity to recharge the batteries when needed. It boasts an all-electric range of 40 miles, more than adequate for most daily driving. GM reports that under typical driving conditions, the Volt averages 151 miles per gallon.

Brown goes on to say:

This new car technology is matched by new wind-turbine technology, setting the stage for an automotive-fuel economy powered largely by cheap wind energy. The Energy Department notes that North Dakota, Kansas and Texas alone have enough wind energy to easily satisfy national electricity needs. To actually put wind power on the road, of course, we would have to tap the wind resources in nearly all the states, plus those that are off-shore, which the department says can meet 70 percent of national electricity needs.

Who is right? I'm inclined to cast my vote in favor of Occam's Razor, or, as it is often paraphrased: All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best. Wind-powered plug-in hybrids appear to be the simplest solution.

Generating Jobs, Producing Energy

The tired, old energy paradigms of the last hunded years and the fixation on fossil fuels do nothing for solving climate destabilization problems. In this interview produced by The Real News Network, José Etcheverry, an energy policy analyst for the David Suzuki Foundation, explains how renewable resources, including solar and wind power, encourage a decentralized energy model where individual communities benefit not only from cost-effective power, but jobs and a steady flow of revenues as well.

Phenomenal Growth in Wind Power Generation

The year 2007 was a banner year for new wind projects, as reported by the Environment News Service. The total wind power generating capacity rose by 45 percent and bolstered the economy by more than USD 9 billion.

Randall Swisher of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) commented:

"This is the third consecutive year of record-setting growth, establishing wind power as one of the largest sources of new electricity supply for the country.

"This remarkable and accelerating growth is driven by strong demand, favorable economics, and a period of welcome relief from the on-again, off-again, boom-and-bust, cycle of the federal production tax credit for wind power."

In this strong growth climate, wind turbines are selling out as quickly as producers can build them. Growth in 2008, however, will depend strongly on extension on the federal production tax credit, according to AWEA.

Gaming Renewable Energy

The business culture in the United States overwhelmingly touts the virtues of a free market economy, but in practice what we have is a corporate nanny state (closely related to the conservative nanny state). This is particularly the case when it comes to power generation. The rules of the game, especially when it comes to renewable energy, are skewed in favor of the power utilities to the expense of the individual.

In a biting Truthout article, Renwables From the Bottom Up, Craig Morris compares the situation in Germany (where individual and small-scale renewable energy is thriving) to the United States (where net metering and other schemes limit the participation of the public). The profits of the utilities are assured, while the ability of small-scale producers to get a fair market value for energy they put back into the grid is restricted. Some free market...

In this article, Morris says:

Utilities also like net-metering because it imposes an artificial cap on the size of systems. In other words, it keeps the competition small. If your meter runs backward for the year, you may not even get the full retail rate for the excess power you produced, if you get anything. So if you conserve electricity at home, make sure you do not put too many panels on your roof lest you get nothing for your investment.

No wonder solar is moving slowly in the US. What we need is fair competition between energy providers and citizens - as cloudy Germany has. As a result of different legislation, Germans are not only the world leader in wind power, but also in solar, and their biomass sector grew by 55 percent in 2006. They don't use net-metering for solar or a tax credit for wind as we do. Rather, the secret to their success is that they empower citizens to compete with utilities eye-to-eye.

Remember deregulation? Where we failed, Germany succeeded. Since 1999, Germany's electricity and gas markets have been "liberalized," i.e. open for competition not only between corporations, but between corporations and citizens. Retail rates have remained stable, not skyrocketed, and there have been no rolling brownouts. On the contrary, Germany has only around 20-30 minutes of power outages on average each year - among the lowest blackout figures in the world. Renewables now make up 13 percent of the country's electricity supply - and this share is rising by around two percent per annum.

The German system does not pander to the vested interests of powerful utilities. Rather, utilities have to pay citizens a "minimum price" (floor price) set by the government for renewable power. The price is based on what power from a typical renewables generator would cost (cost of system divided by probable output); the retail rate on which net-metering is based is irrelevant here. Germans need only make sure that their systems are well designed and properly installed to turn a profit on their investments.

We desperately need to change our energy production policies to counter the rising spectre of global warming, but it's not an easy thing to do when somebody at the top is gaming the system.

Energy News from the Upper Midwest

We might think of the Upper Midwest as a place where interests in energy take a backseat to the gritty demands of farming, but as the weekly energy roundup demonstrates, activism and progressive energy policies are alive and well.

Market Potential for Clean Energy

In an article for the business technology publication Red Herring, analysts provided enthusiastic forecasts for the clean energy tech sector and trumpeted some of the strong growth rates experienced in 2007.

Solar companies were the clean tech engines on the U.S. public markets. Shares of Phoenix, Arizona-based First Solar soared, ending the year up nearly tenfold to close at $267.14. San Jose, California-based SunPower rose 368 percent on the year, closing at $130.39 per share. And Wuxi, China-based Suntech climbed 240 percent, trading at $82.32 per share at the end of trading.

Projections for 2008 are looking bullish as well:

Mr. Pernick predicted 2008 would be a good year for energy storage, energy intelligence—such as smart grid technology—and advanced materials within the clean tech sector.

Wind Power Alternative from NStar

For a price (about $7.50 to $15.00 a month) customers of the Boston utility NStar can buy electricity from a wind farm in upstate New York. The program still needs approval from state utility officials in Massachusetts, but the prospects look encouraging.

As this article in the Boston Globe indicates, the program has some unique advantages over earlier programs of a similar nature.

The two major differences with NStar's plan is that it will have the direct marketing power of the $3 billion utility behind it, and customers will be paying for electricity from the 195-turbine Maple Ridge wind project near Camp Drum in upstate New York and from a 44-tower wind project now under development at Kibby Mountain in Maine expected to open by 2009.

"We have something real and tangible, and we can take you up there and show you the source of where your power is coming from,'' NStar chief executive Thomas J. May said. NStar is signing 10-year contracts to buy a total of 30 megawatts of power from each installation, in total equal to the electric demand of about 45,000 average homes or small businesses. That's about 2 percent of the utility's average total demand, and May said, "We hope the program is oversubscribed and we have to go back and buy more.''

Alan Nogee of the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, one of several environmental groups that advised NStar on developing the plan, said, "We are very excited by NStar's long-term commitment to wind energy and their green power program. They're helping customers say yes to choosing a responsible energy future and a more stable climate.''

The viability of shaping our energy future around wind and solar becomes more clear with each program like this that is launched.