Alternative . Renewable . Energy

US Bureau of Land Management supports wind energy

BLM Accelerates Wind Energy Development [from the Renewable Energy Access news page]

Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Land and Minerals Management Rebecca Watson announced the completion and availability of a study that addresses the environmental, social and economic impacts associated with the development of wind energy on public lands. In essence, BLM has laid the environmental groundwork to speed up the permitting of wind energy in the 11 western public-land states.

..."Our quality of life and economic security are dependent on a stable and abundant supply of affordable energy," Watson said. "Encouraging the production and development of renewable energy sources, including wind energy, on our public lands is a way to help meet the energy needs of the nation, as well as those of growing communities in the West."

Update: Jeff at sustainablog voices some interesting concerns about this.

--

Wind energy frequently asked questions

The American Wind Energy Association has put together a good wind energy FAQ.

--

German report gives wind energy a thumbs down

A recent report out of Germany said wind energy was an ineffecient way to generate renewable energy according to this article originally in The Guardian in the UK:

Wind farms are an expensive and inefficient way of generating sustainable energy, according to a study from Germany, the world's leading producer of wind energy.

The report, which may have ramifications for the UK's rapidly growing wind farm industry, concludes that instead of spending billions on building new wind turbines, the emphasis should be on making houses more energy efficient. Drawn up by the German government's energy agency, it says that wind farms prove a costly form of reducing greenhouse gases.

--

Wind power on the rise worldwide

Global windpower capacity continued to rise in 2004...

The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) released figures on the growth of the global wind indusry, finding it increased installed generating capacity by 20% in 2004.

The industry installed 7,976 megawatts (MW) in 2004 to a world total of 47,317 MW.

The countries with the highest total installed wind power capacity are Germany (16,629 MW), Spain (8,263 MW), the United States (6,740 MW), Denmark (3,117 MW) and India (3,000 MW). The top five countries account for over 67% of 2004 installation and nearly 80% of total wind energy installation worldwide. A number of countries, including Italy, the Netherlands, Japan, and the UK, are above or near the 1,000-MW mark.

--

Tax credit is good news for wind energy

A tax credit in the US for wind power production that had lapsed at the end of 2003 has been approved once again by both the House and the Senate. That bodes well for continued investment in wind power.

The credit, which provides for 1.5 cents for kilowatt-hour of electricity produced, had expired at the end of last year, seriously undermining the economics of new wind projects. The legislation will extend the tax credit retroactively from January 1, 2004 through December 31, 2005.

Wind generation in the United States has grown rapidly. An estimated 1,687 MW of capacity was added in 2003, with total wind capacity approaching 6,400 MW. However, when the production tax credit became bogged down in the national energy bill, investments in wind projects in 2004 were put on hold.

--

Converting wind to hydrogen

Relying on wind energy doesn't do much good when the wind isn't blowing, right? Wrong. That is, if the Norwegians have anything to say about it. By way of Bill at The Whalesong Project's Whalelog comes this article about a project underway to turn wind power into hydrogen.

Utsira island [off the coast of Norway] has launched a pilot project involving the transformation of surplus electricity produced by wind into hydrogen. It can be stored for use on calm days or for when wind god Aeolus is huffing and puffing so hard that windmills can't be used.

"Hydrogen produced from renewables could become a major energy carrier: it could secure a stable power supply, it is independent from fossil fuels and it has no harmful emissions attached to it," said Joergen Rostrup, head of new energy at Norwegian energy conglomerate Norsk Hydro.

How does it work?

Located at the base of one of the windmills is what is being presented as the first full scale project for a clean energy system that combines wind and hydrogen.

Surplus wind-created energy, using electrolysis, splits the oxygen atoms from the hydrogen atoms that make up water molecules.

The hydrogen is stored in a reservoir and then reinjected into a regular hydrogen generator or into a fuel cell -- the project's main innovation -- which starts spewing out energy as soon as the windmill blades come to a standstill.

The energy produced isn't cost effective yet, but the hope is that further development will change that. The Norwegian government is funding 1/4 of the nearly $6 million dollars for the Utsira project.

--

Rooftop turbine wind power

An interesting new development out of Scotland - the rooftop wind turbine about the size of a satellite dish.

Here's an article on the Swift wind turbine . from Renewable Devices Limited, originally in The Independent.

The inventors hope to begin full-scale production by the end of the year and hope to be making more than 3,000 a year by 2006. For the first time, electrical power from renewable sources could be directly installed to individual properties for £1,500 and produce enough energy to run most off-peak appliances in the home and up to a third of all power needs the rest of the time.

The possibility isn't without its skeptics though:

"[The miniature turbines] are hardly going to revolutionise the domestic energy market," said David Bruce, chairman of Views of Scotland, an umbrella organisation representing wind-farm protest groups. "The machines have a nameplate rating of 1.5kW; on the rare occasions that wind conditions were perfect, you would need two of them to boil a kettle. For most of the time, they would produce about a fifth of that amount.   "Makers claim they will produce 4,200kW hours per year; that's a higher-capacity factor than is claimed for mammoth turbines (of two to 2,500 times the output) erected on 70-metre columns on prime wind-sites."

--

Environmentalists sue wind companies

Hmmmm...it seems no solution is perfect...

Here's an article in the Las Vegas Sun about an environmental group suing two wind companies because "wind farms they operate east of San Francisco are killing thousands of protected birds, including eagles, hawks and owls."

Wind the fastest-growing energy source

An ABCnews.com article says that wind is the fastest growing energy source in the world...

A recent study by the Department of Energy labeled wind the "fastest-growing energy source in the world." In the three year period from 2000 to 2003, wind power capacity increased a whopping 159 percent in Europe and 87 percent in the United States, according to Standard and Poor's Ratings Services.