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Posted Mar 18, 2014, 4:53 PM
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BANNED
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: lodged against an abutment
Posts: 7,556
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Quote:
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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http://theconversation.com/wind-farm...-illness-24458
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