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  #141  
Old Posted Mar 15, 2014, 5:50 PM
amor de cosmos amor de cosmos is offline
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Renewable Energy Brings Out Some Extreme Nimbyism
Jennifer Runyon
March 14, 2014 | 0 Comments

Wind Turbines Ruin Views

On a much larger scale of extreme nimbyism, look no further than Cape Wind, a proposed offshore wind farm near Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The project has been in the works for more than 10 years and has seen lawsuit after lawsuit be brought against it. The bottom line and the suspected reason for all of this opposition is that residents of the cape, among whom are the very famous Kennedy’s, worry that the sight of 130 turbines about 5 miles out to sea will destroy their view of the ocean.

In a press release announcing that Cape Wind has again prevailed in its legal battles, the company noted that “Judge Walton rejected a long list of legal claims project opponents had raised, including arguments over navigational safety, alternative locations, alternative technologies, historic preservation, Native American artifacts, sea turtles, and the adequacy of the project’s environmental impact statement and biological opinions.”

It still remains to be seen if the wind farm will be built but, once again, as of today all systems are go.

Even Horses Hate Wind Farms

While most of the Nimby claims come from humans, keep in mind that horses, too, have serious problems with wind farms. According to a story in The Irish Times last month, the bloodstock industry, that is the industry that breeds thoroughbred horses, is worried that Ireland is too lenient on where wind turbines can be sited and is requesting that changes be made to the wind energy development guidelines.

According to the article, a group of four horse organizations -- the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association, the Irish Jockeys’ Association, the Irish Racehorse Trainers’ Association and the Association of Irish Racehorse Owners – had filed a submission stating that thoroughbreds have “a highly-evolved flight response and were particularly sensitive to perceived visual or auditory threats.”

The submission also claimed that the “safety of the horses, and their riders and handlers could be in danger because of a turbine being located directly within their range of vision or hearing.”
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/...treme-nimbyism
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  #142  
Old Posted Mar 18, 2014, 4:53 PM
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GE Unit to Invest 100s of Millions of Euros in EU Renewables
By Louise Downing
Mar 17, 2014 1:39 PM PT

GE Energy Financial Services, a unit of General Electric Co. (GE), expects to invest hundreds of millions of euros in renewable energy across Europe this year.

“We’re very much in growth mode at the moment,” said Andrew Marsden, managing director and European leader. “If we find the right investments, we will deploy the capital.”

About a third of its $18 billion invested is in renewables, with stakes in more than 12,000 megawatts of wind projects, he said. It’s attracted to the predictable income stream projects generate through government subsidies such as feed-in tariffs.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-0...enewables.html

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A new algorithm improves the efficiency of small wind turbines
Elhuyar Fundazioa

Small wind turbines tend to be located in areas where wind conditions are more unfavourable. "The control systems of current wind turbines are not adaptative; in other words, the algorithms lack the capacity to adapt to new situations," explained Iñigo Kortabarria, one of the researchers in the UPV/EHU'sAPERT research group. That is why "the aim of the research was to develop a new algorithm capable of adapting to new conditions or to the changes that may take place in the wind turbine," added Kortabarria. That way, the researchers have managed to increase the efficiency of wind turbines.

The speed of the wind and that of the wind turbine must be directly related if the latter is to be efficient. The same thing happens with a dancing partner. The more synchronised the rhythms of the dancers are, the more comfortable and efficient the dance is, and this can be noticed because the energy expenditure for the two partners is at a minimum level. To put it another way, the algorithm specifies the way in which the wind turbine adapts to changes. This is what the UPV/EHU researchers have focussed on: the algorithm, the set of orders that the wind turbine will receive to adapt to wind speed.

"The new algorithm adapts to the environmental conditions and, what is more, it is more stable and does not move aimlessly. The risk that algorithms run is that of not adapting to the changes and, in the worst case scenario, that of making the wind turbine operate in very unfavourable conditions, thereby reducing its efficiency.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...-ana031814.php

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03/17/2014 12:26 PM
Koch Brothers Lose Another Round Against Cape Wind
SustainableBusiness.com News

Cape Wind won another round of legal victories in its quest to build the first offshore wind farm in the US off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

In the latest ruling, US District Judge Walton upheld the
Department of Interior's approval of the wind farm against four lawsuits that challenged it.

As have courts in the past, Judge Walton rejected the same list of arguments over navigational safety, alternative locations,
historic preservation, Native American artifacts, sea turtles, and the adequacy of the project's environmental impact statement and biological opinions.

Environmental organizations, small and large, favor the project, and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Conservation Law Foundation of New England, and Massachusetts Audubon Society filed briefs in support of it.

Filed in 2010, when the project was permitted, the four legal challenges are mostly from the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, the main opposition group. Funded primarily by fossil fuel billionaire Bill Koch, this is the group's 14th lawsuit.

It turns out the decade-long battle has not been about views, property values, or concern for wildlife, but about powerful, entrenched dirty energy interests trying to prevent the emergence of a significant clean energy industry, led by one of the Koch Bros.

That's because reports show that Offshore Wind Turbines Can Power Entire East Coast.

It took nine years of comprehensive reviews by 17 federal and state agencies before Cape Wind was approved. In contrast, it typically takes just two years to review a coal plant, notes NRDC.
http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/i...splay/id/25585

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18 March 2014, 5.16am GMT
Wind farm reviews are pointless if they leave out anxiety illness

The Australian Medical Association has released a statement once again affirming that there is no evidence that wind farms harm human health.

Geoffrey Dobb, chair of the AMA’s Public Health Committee, said: “The available Australian and international evidence does not support the view that wind farms cause adverse health effects.”

However, the statement did acknowledge that:
People living near wind farms who experience adverse health or wellbeing may well do so because of heightened anxiety or negative perceptions about wind farms.
These conclusions confirm the overwhelming body of evidence that suggests so-called “wind turbine syndrome”, or WTS, is caused by psychological, rather than physiological, factors. As Simon Chapman has argued, WTS appears to be a classic psycho-social - or psychogenic - illness.

While many in the scientific community are inclined to believe that the physiological facts will solve everything, this is a dangerously naive view. WTS sufferers are not magically cured by the mounting pile of this kind of scientific evidence. It may even be possible that health effects get worse the more people are told they’re not really sick.
http://theconversation.com/wind-farm...-illness-24458
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  #143  
Old Posted Mar 20, 2014, 6:25 PM
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Renewable Energy Opponents at it Again in Kansas, but Wind (and Solar!) Power Forge Ahead
Jeff Deyette, asst director of research & analysis, Clean Energy
March 20, 2014

ALEC and their fossil fuel-funded cohorts are taking yet another crack at undermining renewable energy policy in Kansas. Fortunately, their ill-conceived antics are not distracting wind and solar development from moving full steam ahead.

This week, the Senate held a public hearing on SB 433, a bill that would outright repeal the state’s successful renewable electricity standard (RES) requiring that 20 percent of Kansas’s power come from renewable energy by 2020. The bill is sponsored by the Ways and Means Committee, which is chaired by Senator Ty Masterson — an ALEC member. While you have to marvel at their persistence and political theater — similar attacks on the RES have failed each of the last two years — the tactics behind these rollback efforts are more insidious. Recent efforts to discredit the RES by linking it to multiple utility rate hikes and Obamacare have been characterized as “nothing short of a lie,” “misleading,” and “laughable.”

In truth, the RES has already delivered substantial economic and environmental benefits to local communities and it’s been affordable. According to a Kansas Corporate Commission report, RES-driven development has had a very modest 1.7 percent impact on consumer rates. That’s why 75 percent of Kansans support the current RES policy.

http://blog.ucsusa.org/renewable-ene...orge-ahead-454

Quote:
March 19, 2014 4:47 pm
Permission granted for huge wind farm off Scotland
By Press Association

The world's third-largest offshore wind farm, capable of powering a million homes and creating 5,000 jobs, has been cleared for construction off the Scottish coast.

Formal consent has been granted for adjacent projects by Moray Offshore Renewables Limited (Morl) and the Beatrice Offshore Windfarm Limited (Bowl) for a total of 326 wind turbines.

The developments in the Moray Firth, in north-east Scotland, will be capable of generating up to 1,866MW of electricity.

Their effect on birds and the environment will be monitored, Fergus Ewing, Scottish energy minister, said.

“These wind farms alone could generate gross value worth up to £2.5bn over their lifetime and generate up to 4,600 jobs during peak construction and up to 580 once in operation,” he said.

“Offshore wind has been delayed by the process of the UK government's electricity market reform, but these two consents today offer tangible progress towards real investment opportunity in Scotland.

“Scottish planning policy is clear that the design and location of any onshore and offshore wind farm should reflect the scale and character of the landscape or seascape and should be considered environmentally acceptable,” he added.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/93a3e...44feab7de.html
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  #144  
Old Posted Mar 21, 2014, 3:49 PM
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Wind turbines get larger and larger. Again we have the tallest wind turbine in the world with a pinnacle height of 224 metres for request of adding in the database!
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  #145  
Old Posted Mar 21, 2014, 4:35 PM
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As Race Tightens, Renewable Energy Costs Fall Quickly
Bruce Hamilton — March 20, 2014



The most common metric used to compare the costs of different power generation technologies is levelized cost of energy (LCOE). LCOE is defined as the average cost per unit of electricity over the life of a project, which is driven primarily by capital costs, operating costs, financing, and capacity factor (power output relative to the installed capacity). All of these factors vary by technology and are continually changing. The chart below shows a snapshot of LCOE for various technologies estimated by Navigant Consulting as of late 2013. Note that each estimate provided represents an average of a wide range of values, given the many variables such as plant size, age, and location that exist within each technology.



Wind Cost Resumes Its Downward Trend

The LCOE of wind power has experienced a similar decline since its modern day peak in 2009. Average power purchase agreement prices for wind plants in the interior (windy) part of the United States were around $50 per MWh (in 2013 dollars) that year, compared to an average of $23 per MWh in 2013. The newest generation of wind turbines have capacity factors that are approximately 10 percentage points higher (i.e., 45% instead of 35%) compared to just 5 years ago. With the new large rotor turbines yet to be integrated into the U.S. fleet, we can expect continued improvements in the years ahead, with many projects achieving capacity of factors above 50%.

Mature technologies are also able to secure more favorable financing. This is due to the lower perceived risk by financial providers, which improves the price competitiveness of these projects. Both wind and solar are now becoming mainstream technologies and will ultimately become cost-competitive without the need for incentives. As the newer renewable technologies mature, we expect them to benefit from more attractive financing terms, as well.
http://www.navigantresearch.com/blog...s-fall-quickly

Quote:
Stanford Report, March 20, 2014
Wind farms can provide a surplus of reliable clean energy to society, Stanford study finds
Today's wind industry, even with the necessary batteries and other grid-scale storage, is energetically sustainable, Stanford scientists say.

By Mark Shwartz

The worldwide demand for solar and wind power continues to skyrocket. Since 2009, global solar photovoltaic installations have increased about 40 percent a year on average, and the installed capacity of wind turbines has doubled.

The dramatic growth of the wind and solar industries has led utilities to begin testing large-scale technologies capable of storing surplus clean electricity and delivering it on demand when sunlight and wind are in short supply.

Now a team of Stanford researchers has looked at the "energetic cost" of manufacturing batteries and other storage technologies for the electrical grid. At issue is whether renewable energy supplies, such as wind power and solar photovoltaics, produce enough energy to fuel both their own growth and the growth of the necessary energy storage industry.

"Whenever you build a new technology, you have to invest a large amount of energy up front," said Michael Dale, a research associate at Stanford. "Studies show that wind turbines and solar photovoltaic installations now produce more energy than they consume. The question is, how much additional grid-scale storage can the wind and solar industries afford and still remain net energy providers to the electrical grid?"

Writing in the March 19 online edition of the journal Energy & Environmental Science, Dale and his Stanford colleagues found that, from an energetic perspective, the wind industry can easily afford lots of storage, enough to provide more than three days of uninterrupted power. However, the study also revealed that the solar industry can afford only about 24 hours of energy storage. That’s because it takes more energy to manufacture solar panels than wind turbines.

"We looked at the additional burden that would be placed on the solar and wind industries by concurrently building out batteries and other storage technologies," said Dale, the lead author of the study. "Our analysis shows that today’s wind industry, even with a large amount of grid-scale storage, is energetically sustainable. We found that the solar industry can also achieve sustainable storage capacity by reducing the amount of energy that goes into making solar photovoltaics."

Reducing energy inputs to battery manufacturing is also needed, he said.
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/m...gy-032014.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0320140854.htm
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  #146  
Old Posted Mar 24, 2014, 5:03 PM
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altaeros energies high altitude wind turbine deploys at 1,000 feet above ground

altaeros energies, the wind energy company formed out of MIT, announced that its alaska demonstration project is set to break the world record for the highest wind turbine ever deployed. at a height 1,000 feet above ground, the BAT (buoyant airborne turbine) project, will be over 275 feet taller than the current record holder for the highest wind turbine, the vestas v164-8.0-mw. the BAT has been designed to generate consistent, low cost energy for the remote power and microgrid market, which is currently served by expensive diesel generators. the wind turbines will be used to power remote and island communities; agriculture, disaster relief organizations, and even military bases.


http://www.designboom.com/technology...ne-03-24-2014/

Video Link


Quote:
A peek into the astonishing future of wind power
By Ari Phillips on 24 March 2014
Climate Progress

“What if you could scoop the air? Scoop it and move it downward, amplifying its kinetic energy along the way, concentrate it to a single point of intensity, the way a magnifying glass concentrates sunlight to a single incendiary point?”

Dr. Daryoush Allaei, an engineer and founder of Sheerwind, an innovative wind power company, is concentrating his unique thought process on harnessing wind energy in new ways.

“And assuming you could do this technically, could you do it on a large enough scale to make it economically feasible?” Allaei writes in his company description. “More to the point, could you generate energy so inexpensively that it stages a renaissance?”

Sheerwind is pushing the boundaries of wind power innovation with its bladeless wind turbine, called INVELOX. The turbines funnel wind into ground-level generators through a tapering passageway that squeezes and accelerates the air. The units are about half as tall as traditional wind towers, which rise up to 260 feet into the air, and the ground-based turbine blades are more than 80 percent smaller than conventional wind turbine blades, which are about 115-feet long. The device resembles a giant gramophone that sucks in wind instead of blurting out sound.

Sheerwind represents a small point in the larger picture of wind power development, itself part of the story of renewable energy technology. The entire history of power generation, from Ben Franklin’s kite experiments 250 years ago to deep sea drilling for oil and gas is a complex tale of imaginative inventiveness riding up against economic realities. As wind power takes hold across the world, developers are constantly looking for new ways to make the technology lighter, faster, and more efficient but some of the most inventive ideas are often stymied by a lack of financial support during early stages.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/peek...nd-power-99830
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  #147  
Old Posted Mar 25, 2014, 12:59 AM
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Having gone to school at Texas Tech in Lubbock I'll say the whole illness stuff is pretty far-fetched. Farmers and ranchers are typically fine with the windmills since it brings a stable flow of money. They like to call it "mail money" because they get to continue to do the work around their land and receive a check in the mail ever so often from the windmills. The 84 corridor on the Llano Estacado is a sight to see day &/or night with the thousands of turbines out there. Texas is finally getting the transmission lines from the farms in west Texas to the markets in east Texas. Also, check out the Texas Tech University National Wind Institute http://www.depts.ttu.edu/nwi/
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  #148  
Old Posted Mar 27, 2014, 5:03 PM
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As Solar Prices Fall, Wind Still Finds a Role in Microgrids
Peter Asmus — March 25, 2014

With the steep declines in solar photovoltaic (PV) system prices over the past 5 years, many developers of remote microgrids – systems not interconnected with a traditional utility grid – have begun to shy away from their previous reliance on wind power to lower the systems’ consumption of polluting and increasingly expensive diesel fuel.

As one long-time observer summed up the situation: “The history of the small wind turbine industry is one littered with failures.” The story of Southwest Windpower is particularly galling. Backed by investments from General Electric, the company’s tiny turbines were pumped out into the market with little regard for long-term performance. As a result, many of these extremely light-weight machines, producing less than 2 kilowatts (kW) of power each, have stopped working only after a few years. In some remote island installations, the machines have literally been blown away by hurricanes and other extreme weather events. While some other small wind turbines, such as those of Bergey Wind Power, have had lasting power, many of these typically small, small wind companies have struggled over the past few decades.



Both, Not Either

Despite these negatives, many remote microgrid developers still see value in wind. In many cases, wind power is still half the cost of solar PV. In fact, the ideal scenario is not just solar or just wind as renewable options, but both. The sun shines during the day; the wind often blows at night. Incorporating both of these renewable resources enables the use of a smaller energy storage device – a technology that is currently often viewed as the weak link among hardware choices for a microgrid, due to high cost.

Furthermore, there are many wind turbines that now offer direct drives, eliminating the gear box that is the most common point of failure, which contributes to high O&M costs. If such wind turbines can be installed without a crane, as is the case with Eocycle’s, some of the installation headaches also go away.
http://www.navigantresearch.com/blog...-in-microgrids
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  #149  
Old Posted Mar 29, 2014, 4:06 PM
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Wind power cost competitive with natural gas, study finds
Mar 27, 2014 by Diane Stirling



(Phys.org) —The costs of using wind energy and natural gas for electricity are virtually equal when accounting for the full private and social costs of each, making wind a competitive energy source for the United States, according to a new study on the federal tax credit for wind energy.

Just released by researchers at Syracuse University and the University of California, the analysis shows that wind energy comes within .35 cents per kWh when levelized over the 20-year life of a typical wind contract, compared on an equivalent basis to the full costs for natural gas-fired energy, according to Jason Dedrick, associate professor at Syracuse University's School of Information Studies (iSchool).

"The true cost of electricity from wind power and natural gas are effectively indistinguishable, yet because the cost of carbon emissions is not included in the market price of gas, wind has not been a competitive form of energy use in most of the United States, without government pricingsupport," Dedrick said.
http://phys.org/news/2014-03-power-c...tural-gas.html
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  #150  
Old Posted Mar 31, 2014, 4:01 PM
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March 31, 2014 9:57 am
UK steps up wind farm investment
By Pilita Clark, Environment Correspondent

The UK’s Green Investment Bank has taken its riskiest offshore wind farm bet yet by putting just over £460m into two projects still under construction.

In the third big offshore wind deal in a week, the government-backed bank will buy a 10 per cent stake in the Gwynt y Môr wind farm off the coast of north Wales from the German utility, RWE, for £220m.

The bank will also commit £241m to the Westermost Rough project, off the Yorkshire coast, after agreeing to jointly buy a 50 per cent stake in the farm from Denmark’s Dong Energy, alongside Japan’s Marubeni Corporation.

Until now, the bank has invested in completed wind farms that are already up and running, which are considered less of a gamble than projects that could hit expensive construction snags.

“This is definitely a new risk that they are taking,” said Sophia von Waldow, offshore wind analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “But it is probably the safest given how close these two projects are to commissioning.”

Gwynt y Môr, the biggest offshore wind farm under construction in Europe, is expected to be finished at the end of this year and Westermost Rough in 2015.

That means both wind farms should be able to take advantage of the UK’s existing renewable subsidy scheme, which guarantees payments for 20 years, rather than a new one being introduced this year, which will last 15 years.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/6f514...44feabdc0.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...0MS1JP20140331
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/...-offshore-wind
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  #151  
Old Posted Apr 1, 2014, 4:52 PM
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Wind Power Hits Record in Texas
By James Burgess | Mon, 31 March 2014 22:11

In the Lone Star state, the wind industry hit a new record for generation. On the night of March 26, wind power surpassed 10,000 megawatts of generation, a new high, according to data from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). That was enough to account for 29% of Texas’ 35,768 megawatts being generated that night.

The higher level of wind power generation was made possible by a massive new high-voltage transmission system that connects wind farms in West Texas to load centers farther east. The West Texas transmission lines cost $7 billion and were completed late last year. While the price tag was high, it will allow Texas to nearly double its ability to integrate renewable energy into the grid. The windiest areas in Texas are in the west. On March 26, when the wind power record was broken, only 1,433 megawatts came from wind power along the Gulf Coast, while most of the rest came from West Texas.
http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-Ne...-in-Texas.html
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  #152  
Old Posted Apr 2, 2014, 3:52 PM
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03/27/2014 05:01 PM
Crowdfunding for Solar, Wind Reaching Fevered Pitch
SustainableBusiness.com News

"We can't leave this kind of clean investment up to governments, which are cutting their own debts and are only worried about winning the next election," British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood told Bloomberg. "Nor can we leave it up to investment banks, with their short-term profit motivations."

She's referring to people investing directly in wind and solar through crowdfunding on the web.

In the US, Mosaic is making a hit, but interest is just as strong in Europe. In the UK, such projects raised 51.2 million pounds last year, almost 7% of all crowdfunding projects, according to the UK Crowd Funding Association, reports Bloomberg.

UK clean energy crowdfunding platforms Trillion and Abundance Generation started up last year and are projecting returns of 6-9% for investors.

Solar and wind are ideal crowdfunding targets because once they are installed they produce reliable, long term returns.

SolarCity made news when it recently announced it will launch an online marketplace where everyone can invest in its solar portfolio.

While banks now lend to big solar projects, they still aren't much interested in the small ones - which are the vast majority.
http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/i...splay/id/25612
http://www.greenvc.org/crowdfunding.html

Quote:
Wind energy: On the grid, off the checkerboard
Posted April 2, 2014 - 00:15 by TG Daily Staff

As wind farms grow in importance across the globe as sources of clean, renewable energy, one key consideration in their construction is their physical design -- spacing and orienting individual turbines to maximize their efficiency and minimize any "wake effects," where the swooping blades of one reduces the energy in the wind available for the following turbine.

Optimally spacing turbines allows them to capture more wind, produce more power and increase revenue for the farm. Knowing this, designers in the industry typically apply simple computer models to help determine the best arrangements of the turbines.



This works well for small wind farms but becomes less precise for larger wind-farms where the wakes interact with one another and the overall effect is harder to predict.

Now a team of researchers at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) has developed a new way to study wake effects that takes into account the airflow both within and around a wind farm and challenges the conventional belief that turbines arrayed in checker board patterns produce the highest power output. Their study provides insight into factors that determine the most favorable positioning -- work described in a new paper in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, which is produced by AIP Publishing.
http://www.tgdaily.com/general-scien...e-checkerboard
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  #153  
Old Posted Apr 4, 2014, 4:46 PM
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A peek into the astonishing future of wind power
April 4, 2014 - Author: Ari Phillips

Start-up companies like Sheerwind, Saphon Energy and Makani (bought by Google) are experimenting with revolutionary wind turbine designs. But for now most of the progress made in the wind power sector comes from more conventional technological innovations, such as lower weight, taller towers, improved blade designs, and better logistics, writes Ari Phillips of ClimateProgress. These R&D efforts have led to a 43% price drop in just a few years. Global wind power capacity looks set to more than double from 318 GW now to 760 GW by 2020.

“What if you could scoop the air? Scoop it and move it downward, amplifying its kinetic energy along the way, concentrate it to a single point of intensity, the way a magnifying glass concentrates sunlight to a single incendiary point?”

Dr. Daryoush Allaei, an engineer and founder of Sheerwind, an innovative wind power company, is concentrating his unique thought process on harnessing wind energy in new ways.

“And assuming you could do this technically, could you do it on a large enough scale to make it economically feasible?” Allaei writes in his company description. “More to the point, could you generate energy so inexpensively that it stages a renaissance?”

Sheerwind is pushing the boundaries of wind power innovation with its bladeless wind turbine, called INVELOX. The turbines funnel wind into ground-level generators through a tapering passageway that squeezes and accelerates the air. The units are about half as tall as traditional wind towers, which rise up to 260 feet into the air, and the ground-based turbine blades are more than 80 percent smaller than conventional wind turbine blades, which are about 115-feet long. The device resembles a giant gramophone that sucks in wind instead of blurting out sound.
http://www.energypost.eu/peek-astoni...re-wind-power/
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  #154  
Old Posted Apr 6, 2014, 3:59 PM
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Jim Wiegand, Wind Problems
Exposing the wind industry genocide
April 5, 2014
By Jim Wiegand

For those that have the mistaken belief that wind is green, clean, or in some way a noble venture, reality couldn’t be any further from the truth. There is nothing commendable about hiding the slaughter to millions of protected bird and bats each year.

Most of public is unaware of this because at industrial wind farms there is no transparency. With gag orders, high security, and studies being conducted by the industry’s own biologists, the public has no way of really knowing anything. Under these conditions information is filtered and the industry can report what they believe the public will accept.

Rigging Search Area Size

For decades I have been doing research and making astute wildlife observations. I have the expertise to see what others can not and when analyzing this industry’s studies, I see one sided environmental documents.

From my research and analysis I now have several thousand carcass distance records from turbine blade strikes. These records are from the years 1990 -2010 and none were taken from industry studies conducted with grossly undersized search areas. Search areas for these studies ranged from 50-105 meters from towers. The wind turbines I looked at ranged in size from 65 kW up to 1.5 MW.

These carcass distance records are from the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area, Montezuma Hills Wind Resource Area, Buena Vista wind project, Foote Rim Creek Rim Wind Project, Cedar Ridge Wind Farm, Forward Energy Center, and the Blue Sky Green Field wind project. From these carcass records it can be seen that most carcasses upon impact are launched beyond a turbines blade tip length away from towers. In fact this number is about 60% -70% depending on the study being looked at. This still does not take into consideration that search areas for most of these studies were too small for the size of turbine being studied. Several of the studies even mention this.

The average carcass distance from turbine towers recorded in these studies ranges from about 1 1/2 – 3 times the blade length of these turbines. Many of these turbines were only about 100 feet tall when including blades of about 8.5 meters in length. Hundreds of the other turbines I analyzed were about 300-400 feet at the tip of the rotor sweep.

But the industry has evolved and newer studies do not use larger search areas for their much larger turbines.
http://www.theecoreport.com/green-bl...stry-genocide/
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  #155  
Old Posted Apr 7, 2014, 4:29 PM
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U.S. Wind Power Blows New Records. Again. And Again.
By Tom Randall Apr 7, 2014 5:58 AM PT

Wind was responsible for 4.8 percent of America’s electricity used in January. That’s the highest January total ever, breaking the record from last January, which broke the record for the January before that, and so on. The chart below shows the latest data from the U.S. Energy Information Association.

America’s rising wind power feels unstoppable. That’s because in many areas of the country wind has reached an important tipping point: becoming cheaper than coal and natural gas. In fact, states getting the most electricity from wind include gas-rich Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado.

Onshore wind power has come of age, and not just in the U.S. This next chart shows the levelized cost of energy worldwide, using data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). Average onshore wind power now costs the same as gas worldwide, at about $84 per megawatt hour. That’s without subsidies.

In the U.S., competition between wind and gas is fierce. New techniques known as fracking (or hydraulic fracturing for the timid) have overhauled the U.S. energy economy and brought America some of the cheapest natural gas prices in the world. In order to compete, U.S. wind relied on a tax credit, which expired at the end of last year.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-0...nd-again-.html
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  #156  
Old Posted Apr 9, 2014, 4:34 PM
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Issue: 04/14/2014
Prices Dropping as More Turbines Turn
04/08/2014
By Thomas F. Armistead

In December, MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. placed the world's largest-ever order for onshore wind turbines, estimated at $1 billion for 448 units totaling 1,050 MW, to be installed on five Iowa wind farms. Despite its size, the large capacity is not unusual for Iowa, which already boasts 5,571 MW of installed wind capacity, generating 27.4% of its electricity mix.

Amid growth in wind-generation nationwide, Iowa's is the highest proportion for any state. According to the Energy Information Administration, some 5.7% of total U.S. generating capacity—61,108 MW— now comes from wind. In 2012 alone, a record-setting 13,131 MW of wind-energy generation was installed in the U.S., the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) reports. More than 12,000 MW were under construction in 2013, more than ever in history. But the boom times may be ending. Total wind power installations for 2013 were just 1,084 MW, down 92% from the 2012 level. The reason why goes to the heart of one of the greatest hindrances to the U.S. wind industry: inconsistent, start-and-stop regulation.

Chaining the Wind

Congress has kept the wind industry on a short leash, renewing the federal production tax credit (PTC) of 2.3¢ per kilowatt hour for wind energy for just one or two years at a time since 1999. As the PTC was expiring again at the end of 2012, it was extended for another year, with modified eligibility criteria. For example, a project had to begin construction by the end of 2013 and be in service by the end of 2015. With the expectation the PTC would go away in 2014, developers spent most of 2013 planning and financing their projects. As a result, more than 10,900 MW of the 12,000 MW now in construction were started during the fourth quarter of 2013.

Wind energy currently generates nearly 30% of MidAmerican Energy's total owned generation. Completion of the $1.9-billion, five-site expansion announced in December, which MidAmerican calls "Wind VIII," will boost that to about 39%. MasTec Inc.'s subsidiary Wanzek Construction already has completed one 44-MW expansion and now is working on a 250-MW wind farm for the program. Mortenson Co. is constructing the other three projects: a 500-MW plant, a 138.6-MW plant and a 117-MW plant, all in Iowa. Mortenson's contract on the 500-MW Highland project is typical: engineering, procurement and construction of access roads, foundations and electrical systems, together with turbine erection and tower wiring. Construction costs are not available.

"In the past four years, the cost of wind power has come down 43%," says Tim Maag, vice president and general manager of Mortenson's wind-energy group. "From what we're seeing, wind is now competitive with any form of new generation that is constructed." Where a wind resource is available, the levelized cost of electricity of a PTC-eligible wind project is the lowest for any new generation, provided dispatch- ability is not part of the equation, says Bryan Uhlmansiek, project manager for Black & Veatch.



The commercial market now boasts 150-meter-tall towers with integration-friendly converters and rotors sporting 100-m-long carbon-fiber blades, says Luis Cerezo, technical executive for renewable energy at the Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, Calif. Within the next five years, he expects to see hydraulic drives for wind turbines that will allow the generator to be placed at the tower's foot, which will reduce the nacelle's weight and allow for taller towers.

Though MidAmerican's turbine order has set a world record, it's not likely to stand for long with the wind industry's growth. For example, wind now constitutes 28% of Denmark's installed generation capacity, and, on a low-demand Sunday last year, that was enough to meet 100% of the country's power needs.
http://enr.construction.com/infrastr...bines-turn.asp
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  #157  
Old Posted Apr 10, 2014, 4:14 PM
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Apr 10, 2014
Ikea Buys Illinois Wind Farm in Global Renewables Push

April 10 (Bloomberg) — Ikea, the world’s largest furniture retailer, bought a wind farm under construction in Illinois, it’s first in the U.S. and its largest renewable-energy investment to date.

The 98-megawatt wind project in Hoopeston, about 110 miles (176 kilometers) northwest of Indianapolis, is expected to be complete in the first half of next year, Almhult, Sweden-based Ikea said today in a statement. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

Ikea is seeking to produce as much renewable power as the company consumes by 2020, and the Hoopeston plant will meet about 18 percent of the company’s total global demand. The wind farm will produce enough electricity for about 34,000 U.S. homes, or about 165 percent of the company’s U.S. electricity consumption from 38 stores, five distribution centers, two service centers and a factory.
http://about.bnef.com/bnef-news/ikea...newables-push/

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Energy storage needed in UK to offset cost of turning off wind turbines
10 April 2014

The UK needs to invest in energy storage technology in order to alleviate financial burdens brought upon on consumers when wind farm operators turn off their turbines.

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) warns in a report published today that consumers will continue to pay increasing bills for constraint payments from the National Grid – essentially a payment to generators to turn off their wind turbines - unless the government works with energy companies and industry to develop a road map for the development, demonstration and deployment of energy storage technologies.

Recent figures from the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) claim that £8.7m in constraint payments were made to wind farms in March, part of the £13,749,814 already paid out this year. In 2013, wind farms received £32,707,351.

Under existing market arrangements, if an energy company generating electricity is unable to supply its power to the grid because it is not required it is entitled to constraint payments.

In its new report Energy Storage: The missing link in the UK’s energy commitments, IMechE highlights energy storage technologies such as those based on Cryogenics (or so-called liquid air), flywheels, pumped heat and graphene super-capacitors as potential ways the UK can start making the best use of its renewable energy.

In a statement, Dr Tim Fox, head of Energy and Environment at IMechE said: ‘We know that energy bills are going to rise in future, but unless we invest in energy storage technology these constraint payments are set to become an unnecessary additional cost for the consumer.

’The issue of constraint payments has become a recurring concern of consumers, as they are effectively funding the non-supply of electricity from a range of generation technologies, and the fact that millions are currently handed out to wind farms has highlighted a potential challenge for the future.

‘At the moment constraint payments for renewable based electricity generation makes up a relatively small proportion of the total, but as the installed capacity of these technologies increases in the future the issue of such payments will likely become of growing public concern. Virtually any form of energy storage could help alleviate this problem, by allowing surplus generation from intermittent renewable sources to be stored by power providers until needed for use at a different time when demand exists.

‘But the need is not just for electricity generation, which only makes up around 26 per cent of UK energy demand, we also require storage for the bigger demands for heat and transport as they transition to renewable sources.

‘The intermittency challenge of renewable sources arises from the fact that the wind does not always blow, the sun does not always shine and the waves are not always in motion at times when consumers demand electricity. Equally, the converse is also true, in that consumer demand for power can be low when renewable energy sources are highly active.’
http://www.theengineer.co.uk/energy-...018374.article

Quote:
UK must invest in energy storage, warns Institution of Mechanical Engineers
By Andy Colthorpe | 10 April 2014, 11:46



The report assesses the various energy storage technologies and their appropriateness to the UK sector. It covers technologies including compressed air energy storage (CAES), pumped storage hydroelectric (PSHE), cryogenic energy storage (CES), hydrogen storage and flywheels as well as various electrical battery types. These include flow batteries for longer term applications, lithium-based, nickel-based and several other types.

In addition to advocating for the formulation of a roadmap for storage technology development, which IMechE argues should be done by the UK government in cooperation with the energy industry, the report highlights three key findings.
  1. At pre-launch events for the report, as well as in the report itself, the Institution's head of energy and environment, Dr Tim Fox stressed the importance of looking at energy storage not only in electricity, but also for transport and heat. According to the Institution, electricity only makes up around 26% of UK energy demand.
  2. Secondly, IMechE argues that "government must recognise that energy storage cannot be incentivised by conventional market mechanisms" – according to the Institution, long-term environmental and energy security objectives will not be met unless mechanisms to deploy storage are put in place.
  3. Finally and perhaps the biggest barrier if mainstream press coverage of energy issues in the UK is to be believed, the report argues strongly that while rapidly rising energy costs are a matter of deep concern, the UK "must reject its obsession with 'cheapness' in the sector. The Institution concludes that whatever the outcome and whichever technologies are deployed, energy costs are likely to continue to rise.
http://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/ne...ical_engineers

Last edited by amor de cosmos; Apr 10, 2014 at 4:40 PM.
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  #158  
Old Posted Apr 14, 2014, 4:13 PM
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Poll: Public prefers wind to fracking as a next door neighbour
Survey finds 62 per cent of people would choose wind farms rather than fracking in their area

By BusinessGreen staff
14 Apr 2014

British people would rather live by a wind turbine than a shale gas fracking site, according to new research that highlights the continued popularity of the renewable energy technology, regardless of individual's voting intentions.

A total of 62 per cent of the 2,061 people surveyed by YouGov said they would rather have a wind farm in their local council area than a fracking project, with just 19 per cent preferring to have fracking operations nearby.

The poll for green energy company Ecotricity also found fracking is less popular with women than men, with just nine per cent of female respondents preferring the controversial gas extraction technique compared to 29 per cent of men. Both sexes preferred wind, however: 68 per cent of women and 56 per cent of men selected wind over fracking.

Fracking is also far less popular with the younger generation - only 12 per cent of those that favour fracking over wind were in the 18 to 24 bracket, while 29 per cent were over 60.

The findings tally with the government's ongoing attitudes survey, with the most recent results showing 64 per cent of the public support onshore wind in the UK and only 28 per cent back fracking.
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news...door-neighbour
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  #159  
Old Posted Apr 15, 2014, 4:30 PM
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April 15, 2014
Twelve states produced 80% of U.S. wind power in 2013



In 2013, 12 states accounted for 80% of U.S. wind-generated electricity, according to preliminary generation data released in EIA's March Electric Power Monthly report. Texas was again the top wind power state with nearly 36 million megawatthours (MWh) of electricity. Iowa was second, with more than 15 million MWh, followed by California, Oklahoma, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Oregon, Colorado, Washington, North Dakota, and Wyoming.
http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=15851
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  #160  
Old Posted Apr 18, 2014, 4:46 PM
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April 18, 2014
Eleven states generated electricity from nonhydro renewables at double U.S. average



About 6.2% of total U.S. electricity supplies in 2013 were generated from nonhydro renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal, up from 5.4% in 2012. But 11 states produced electricity at more than twice the national average from these sources—accounting for between 14% and 32% of their net electric generation—according to preliminary 2013 generation data in EIA's Electric Power Monthly report.
http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=15911
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