Floating Wind Turbines

This is good stuff from MIT's Technology Review mag, even if it's not ready for prime time world wide. According to a 2006 analysis by the U.S. Department of Energy, "General Electric, and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, offshore wind resources on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts exceed the current electricity generation of the entire U.S. power industry."

Screw the Kennedy's and the other Cape Wind naysayers who don't want to see 1.5" turbines 3 miles offshore from their luxury compounds. With this technology the turbines can be so far offshore you won't even be able to see them with the Hubble telescope.

Play along, and "the economics of the power industry are approaching a tipping point that will drive rapid adoption of floating turbines." Tipping is what we're trying to achieve, and avoid, at the same time.

Go Blow

The American Wind Energy Association has just released its April 2008 assessment of the state of Wind power in the US, and it's chock full of good news and strong trends. My friends in Texas don't need to be told that they are way out in front and getting stronger (and bigger) in this department every day. As of 2007, Texas had almost twice as much wind power installed as the next leading state, diminutive California. And for the year, it looks like its only going to extend its lead as it installed more than twice the new capacity of the 2nd place finisher, Colorado.

My own state Massachusetts, despite all the hot air billowing from our portly and pretentious pols, never mind the steady ocean breezes, has barely 1 MW installed and signs of improvement are slim. Oh well, maybe I'll move. Or maybe I'll start raising a ruckus and getting some action going up here in the Northeast. If we're going to get away from dino-fuels, renewables installations need to become the new gridiron competition among states. Give me a W - I - N - D !!!!

Brewing up a Sustainable Storm

As the Brooklyn Brewery, purveyor of the well received "Brooklyn Brown Ale" likes to say, "there's wind in our ales". On the back of their coasters and on their web site they tout:

On September 1, 2003 Brooklyn Brewery because the first NY City company to switch to 100% wind generated electricity. The company's brewery and corporate HQ are 100% powered by Newwind Energy, a product of Community Energy Inc.

Here's the link to Community Energy, purveyor off all things wind including RECs (renewable energy credits) companies like Brooklyn Brewery can purchase when they can't actually stick a turbine on their front lawns. Can you imagine the new turbines required if Bud and Miller went this way? I'd respect their companies a whole lot more if they did, though I still wouldn't drink their swill. Well, maybe when parched on a very hot summer day, and if the beer was really cold. OK, then I'd make an exception.

Wind Power Flying High in 2008

"Mission Control, we have lift off". The WSJ reports that the wind power industry is a $6 billion business for GE this year, and they are far from the world's largest provider of turbines. Despite this great news, some folks apparently wish things were otherwise: see the comments that follow the blog. Seems there's some folks out there who believe wind and other types of non-fossil power exist only because the government is paying for them in the form of subsidies, and that once those funds run dry, the entire new energy economy will grind to a halt. Maybe when wind is a $100 billion business, more skeptics will be convinced. Then again, Kansas still doubts Darwin.

Make Megawatts

Amid tales of unemployment woe and shuttered factories, an industry growing so fast it can't fill its ranks: technicians that get wind turbines up and running command as much as $25 an hour according to this account. Make decent money to get in on the ground floor of a young industry that portends plenty of upside.

Bruce Graham, director of a wind education program in Concorida, Oregon notes, "I could go out on the Internet and find 500 jobs...that are open and they want someone right now."

Requirements: technicians with a "working knowledge of mechanics, hydraulics, computers and meteorology with the willingness to climb 200 feet in the air in all kinds of weather."

Wonder how much you're bagging if you're working overtime installing this 7 megawatt wonder in the Gulf of Mexico some dark and stormy night:

Can the US Become Energy Independent? Denmark Did

Middelgrunden off-shore wind farm (Photo: René Seindal [Flickr])

In 1973, Denmark was 99 percent dependent on foreign oil. The '73 oil embargo pushed the Dutch to make a profound comittment to change. The result: Denmark is now energy independent, and in fact, exports electricity to neighboring European countries.

Some highlights of their efforts:

• Wind supplies 21 percent of their energy
  
• They now export wind technology, making 20,000 jobs for a country with half the population of the state of Maine
  
• Cars are taxed at 105% of the cost of the vehicle
  
• The government put up $1 billion to develop and integrate solar, tidal and fuel-cell technology

My original source is a SolarAustin@yahoogroups.com email, but see this Fox News report on the Dutch.

Necessity mothered Danish energy indepenence, the same necessity is coming for the United States.

The Oil for Wind Program

If the energy bill passed by the House (but not the Senate) would have drawn down $13.5B over ten years in oil industry subsidies, and assuming you could frictionlessly redeploy this money, what could you buy? Follow this simple, klunky math to gauge the magnitude of $13.5B:


Subsidies forgone by the oil industry in the failed energy bill: $13,500,000,000 over ten years

If it cost $1M to build a 1 MW wind turbine,

You could buy 13,500 wind turbines outright, or,

If you subsidized 25% of wind turbines' construction cost

Then 13,500 turbines x 4 (representing the 25% subsidy): 54,000 turbines

Since 1 GW = 1,000 MW

New wind power created: 54 GW

Current US Renewable Nameplate Capacity: 26.5 GW

So you could more than double US renewable energy capacity by 2018. Since wind competes on cost with other power sources on occasion now, a 25 percent subsidy ought to make wind consistently, broadly competitive.

Sure, these calcs might be simplistic and hurried, but they're intended to serve as a ten minute assessment of the opportunity to buy the future instead of simply continuing to dole out for what the future used to be. Transform the oil subsidy into the wind subsidy. The Oil for Wind Program.

Quote of the Day

“One of the top 10 pleasures in life is watching your electrical meter go backward."

-- Marc Schambers, California residential wind turbine owner/operator

Wind turbines for homes becoming increasingly affordable in many US states. From article today in the gardening section of the NYT.

Out of Africa - Winds of Change

The Wall Street Journal featured this story on page one today about a young man in Malawi named William Kamkwamba showing some incredible imagination and initiative. He's building windmills (and changing lives) out of local materials and old bicycle parts based on pictures he saw in textbooks. William's blog here reprints the WSJ article and provides more background on this great success story. So, individuals can do it. Countries can do it (see recent post on Great Britain's 20 Gigawatt plan for offshore turbines). So what's keeping the mighty US from taking a giant step forward? What do you think it could be?

Britain Winding up a Wind Power Whopper

Britain's decision to built 20 Gigawatts of offshore wind isn't going to change Bush's behavior ... or the current US Congress's either. But it may embolden the next president, GuliRomClintama. Current administration seems more likely to seek permits to drill for more oil. In reality, we need to pull out all the stops, find more oil but ensure we have the pedal to the metal on all forms of alt energy research. And implementation of what we already know works ... like offshore wind farms. Here's the link.

Far Out Energy Storage

Storage of energy, like storage of data in the computer world, isn't the sexiest topic on the planet. Re: a recent PowrTalk article on using gajillions of plugged-in Car batteries to to smooth out capacity, this C|Net article raises the specter of some way out-of-box approaches. Think: super batteries, compressed air (titillating image to the right is one of these new compressors ... try to contain yourself !!!). But wait there's more: putting the compressed air in natural underground structures - aka caves. And mega flywheels. Energy created when wind is blowing and the sun is shining that's not used immediately, needs to be stored for use at night and when the winds die down. As solar, wind and wave tech gets better and better, and especially when they start to put coal and oil out of business, this is going to be an increasingly important function. In fact, a la chicken and the egg, the storage issue needs to be solved long before alt-e will be able to go mainstream.

Using Vision to Push Reality Around

Ponder this powerful vision of clean skies and home grown American energy: buildings that draw power from the wind and sun to power themselves and the cars that visit them . But that vision can be thwarted by the realities of how we cost things and how we allocate resources in our political system. Our laissez-faire market isn't as frictionless as we might want. Some of the things that thwart:

• Transmission. If a building's power is made and used in the same place there is little to no transmission cost. But transmission (high voltage lines, substations, and so on, maybe $1M per mile to install) is costed separately from power production. So building power doesn't get credit for this advantage.



• Power loss. More of the power generated on-site gets to the end user, it isn't lost in transmission. No credit here, either.



• Peak Shaving. If solar panels are deployed incrementally to handle peak power needs to avoid building new power plants, the avoided cost is much more than the otherwise too expensive solar panel.



• Oil subsidies. Oil is subsidized more generously than emerging renewable energy sources. The subsidies made sense given oil's national strategic significance during and after World War II . It now makes sense to transition to (that is, to subsidize) alternatives, given that they can now be used instead of oil, and offer significant advantages over oil. (With the building powered car electricity becomes an alternative to oil.)



• Start Up. Given new energy's national strategic signficance, and that it faces the traditional hurdles of the start up, it deserves national subsidization (just as oil and other undertakings did in previous situations).



• Reduced Health Care Costs. Improving air quality probably means less people visiting the doctor for asthma, allergies, lung and heart disease, and so on. So, we can expect, but probably can't price well, lower health care costs and higher productivity.

What is asked is a visionary leader (visionary like FDR or Ronald Reagan or Winston Churchill or John F. Kennedy) to gloss over these pesky realities, and draw us to this place. Why should such a grand vision not materialize because of a dozen or so worth less realities?

What's in a Word: Makani

Does Google know something you don't? Duh. I'm pretty sure they know hundreds of billions of things I don't. And here's one of them: one of their alternative energy partners, with a very minimal site is Makani. What is this? Their own explanation: mah kah' nee [Hawaiian] n. Wind, breeze.

Makani's stated space is high altitude wind power, where the breezes are reliable and super strong. Makes me think of Magenn or Skywindpower but with much less detail exposed on the web. Keep you eyes/ears open on this one. Having GOOG in their camp may make all the difference.

Cars and Buildings to Marry

Picture if you can cars running on the excess power produced by buildings. The dots that would frame this picture are beginning to pop up, and they're begging to be connected. One dot is Dynamic Architecture's wind powered skyscraper planned for Dubai.

Another is Ferreira Construction's 45,000 SF solar powered warehouse that might be the first U.S. net zero commercial building (net zero: producing more power than used). Pair these buildings with the Plug In Hybrid movement, put outlets in their parking spaces, and you start to get a picture of the marriage that might be made between cars and buildings.

The Wind Coalition

In response to a comment I made about the tens of Gigawatts of wind power installed in Germany and Spain, a blustery Texan noted that 4 Gigs up already, and lots more coming, his state alone eclipses both Britain and Greece. He commented that once Texans see themselves in a competition (see: Football, Rodeo, pride), they won't rest till they win it. The Wind Coalition site is a good place for tracking progress in South Central US, including the mighty TX.

World Gone Schitzo on Wind Power

WTF alert: what do you want? Do you want a world of landscapes free of windmills but with oceans rising, higher temps and more powerful storms and blackouts galore? Or do you want the same bad scene world but with power to get you through all those dark and stormy nights. Seems like our race is split about 50/50 on this. IMHO we're not going to stop climate change through half hearted actions over the next 20 years. It's coming no matter what we do and don't do. But we can keep energy flowing and maybe even crank a few more hundred more Gigawatts out of all that stormy weather if we choose right. See here.