wind energy

Believe it or not: setting sail on solar

So, believe it or not, this isn't the first post on sailing and solar; back in February my brother-in-law shared how he and my sister keep the Play Actor green on the big blue (you can link to their blog here).  However, I think this tech is beyond what Bud has going on their Baba 35!

Japanese tech company, Eco Marine Power is working on and experimenting with EnergySail which would be a renewable energy driven sail that could be fitted to traditional fuel powered vessels.  Anything from large carriers to patrol ships could one day be powered by the sun!  

The device is being tested in a lab in Osaka with focus on control systems and command interface testing.  EnergySail could see open seas as early as 2013.

Original CNET story here.

Photo credit: Eco Marine Power

Believe it or not: world's longest turbine blade


When Dee saw this headline she was so impressed she whipped out a quick BION post, which means I have Thursday off!  Thanks, Dee! 
Siemens, a manufacturer out of Germany, has found a reason to build this incredibly large off-shore wind turbine, and has plans to build a total of 300. This reminds me of something my brothers would have enjoyed working on as kids. The blades on these puppies are incredibly large (75 meters) that’s equivalent to just over 246 feet. 
Hummm, to put this into prospective let’s just say the blades are about the same size of 2 and a half football fields, 1 and a half Olympic size swimming pools or almost three times the height (at its highest point) of the Golden Gate bridge. Now, double that for a whopping 154 meter span but still weights less than more typically produced blades by using lightweight materials during construction. The entire blade is made of a single piece of “glass fiber-reinforced epoxy resin and balsa wood”. Balsa wood? Yes, that’s right, balsa wood.
Not knowing my wood that well, I had to look up what the heck balsa wood was and if it was a renewable resource. Come to find out it is native to southern Brazil and northern to southern Mexico, but is found in other countries such as Indonesia, Thailand and Papua New Guinea. The best part is that it is a pioneer plant (or as my dad would have said, it’s a volunteer), plants itself in clearings in forests, wither man made or where trees have fallen, or in abandoned agricultural fields. It grows extremely rapidly which explains the lightness of the wood, lower density even than cork, and about 60 percent of the world’s supply comes from balsa plantations that grow it in densely packed patches and harvested after 6-10 years.
Okay, back on track, besides it being lightweight in relation to its size the construction processes also makes the wind turbine extremely strong. A really great asset to have when they will be hit with the energy of about 200-tons of air per second out in the sea!
According to Siemens the tips of the 75 meter long blades will be able to move at up to 80 meters per second or 2.16 mph. So, my mind starts to wonder, why so big? The answer is actually simple. As the turbine blades get longer the amount of electricity they produce increases very rapidly. Because offshore wind projects are quite expensive it makes sense to build a few big wind turbines than lots of small ones.


Photo credits:

Believe it or not: schmorgishborg!

Today's BION is a cheat.  Frankly, I'm just not up to it as I have my second sinus infection in a month and the fifth for the whole summer (yes, it's still over 90 degrees here so it's summer in my book!). So, today you're getting a schmorgishborg of BIONs from headlines that excited me--or as I've previously mentioned, something my husband found on Reddit and then set to me.

Believe it or not: Tesla goes long range with new super charger.

Believe it or not: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Carnegie Institution for Science report that there is enough energy available in winds to meet all of the world’s demand! 

 Believe it or not: San Franciso considers public power market, 100% renewable.

 Believe it or not: First North American tidal turbine goes live in Maine.

Rio must bring out the best in clean energy

Protestors in Rio, courtesy 350.org.
World leaders will debate the merits of sustainable development and a green economy at Rio + 20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development to take place in Rio de Janeiro.

Protesters will use the event to highlight injustice.

And something substantive benefiting the environment may actually get done this week. This year's theme is after all "a green economy in the context of sustainable development poverty eradication and the institutional framework for sustainable development."

However, listening to current U.S. political discourse makes me wonder if anybody in government seriously considers steering toward a green economy.

Wall street bankers, brokers and speculators remain so fixated on profits and bizarre anti-populist goals like killing Dodd-Frank (read Matt Taibbi's "How Wall Street Killed Financial Reform" on rollingstone.com), the already weak-kneed consumer protection act, that real values get swept away like last quarter's balance sheet. The concepts of quality of life, a better place for children and continued proliferation of the American way -- where everyone has a chance to make it big -- get nothing but lip service.

A trillion reasons

Robert Redford put it succinctly in a piece on Huffington Post: "We can do better," he writes. His point is that with so much at stake, we need to shift some emphasis to clean energy and eliminate the near "one trillion dollars of subsidies ... handed out to help the fossil fuel industry" each year.

Here's author and activist Bill McKibben's take, from an email he sent to the 350.org network: "We know that world leaders aren't likely to achieve a comprehensive climate breakthrough in Rio. But our governments could at least stop sending nearly a trillion dollars a year to the fossil fuel industry. If they did, it would help weaken the coal and oil and gas tycoons, and give renewable energy a fighting chance."

The buzzword now is jobs. The issue is so important people are ready to jump at anything, even a silly pipeline project that taps perhaps the most planet-cooking reserves Earth has to offer.

Jobs, jobs, jobs

Redford says, and he's backed up by numerous studies, that every federal or state dollar invested in clean energy gives multiple times the return of fossil fuels. Truly, that's the kind of job that makes sense. Here in California's San Joaquin Valley, we're trying to prepare a ready work force. A consortium of community colleges has banded together to prepare curriculum that meets industry's specifications and enables a green energy renaissance.

Then intent is to create living-wage jobs, rather than positions that perpetuate and exacerbate extreme economic divisions. The middle class is no longer bullet-proof. Incomes are declining.

So how does a green economy fit in? Not easily apparently. If it were up to me, I'd say, "Make the United States energy self-sufficient in 10 years, emphasizing sustainability."

That's not to say we should completely shed oil. The stuff has been quite good to us. Let's just give a shot to making the world a better place, allowing American ingenuity fill in the blanks.

Taking up the challenge

Former Great Britain Prime Minister Tony Blair and a group of international statesmen and business leaders have penned an open letter advocating for a "clean revolution," which they say is essential to "save our economies from the crippling costs of runaway climate change, and create meaningful jobs and enhance energy security."

The group backs a campaign by business and government that calls for the launch in Rio of a campaign by The Climate Group and a range of government and business partners for a "green growth" push out of global recession.

Topical, especially with nearly a half dozen countries in the European Union teetering on financial collapse. Greece elected the conservatives by a squeaky thin margin that allowed the markets a respite. But the future is anyone's guess.

How's the weather?

Kathleen Rogers, president of the Earth Day Network, says there's a chance the Rio + Summit will get results, but "the outlook is bleak."

Normally, I love that pessimistic stuff. It nurtures the curmudgeonly spirit I gained from 24 years in newspapers, pounding out or editing stories about the best and worst in people.

But I'm hoping for more. The summit marks the 20th anniversary of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, and the 10th anniversary of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, the country where my cousin Sarah has decided to raise her twins.

Rogers says the U.N. event two decades past generated real optimism and a climate change treaty that "charted a new course to sustainability."

Love at first bite

Implementation is a completely different issue. All that optimism from the first Rio summit had the bite of my toothless and blind 14-year-old dachshund Spike. Oh, he still barks like crazy -- as do those of us who believe in a sustainable future. But we need a pit bull.

Adding some fangs, or even some well-worn teeth, requires agreement and action. I do believe it wouldn't take much. Many are willing to give it everything they've got to extract power from those green dilithium crystals.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's Sustainable Energy for All initiative has lofty goals, calling for universal energy access, a doubling of energy efficiency and a doubling of renewable energy by 2030. But it's got allies.

Nothing but wind

The European Wind Energy Association says 75 countries around the world have installed wind turbines and 21 have more than 1,000 megawatts generating energy. It says with the right policy support projections show that wind power will double capacity by 2015 and again by 2020.

"This can be achieved," says Kandeh K. Yumkella, the Director-General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, in a statement.

After all, what choice do we have. Really?

Turbine industry grows, but faces stiff wind


Turbine installations in the United States set a record last quarter, but the pending elimination of a popular tax credit could buffet the wind-energy industry next year, officials say.

Fueled in part by concerns over the Production Tax Credit, a total of 788 wind turbines totaling 1,695 megawatts of power - enough to supply  about 1.6 million homes for at least an hour - were erected between January and April in 17 states. That was the strongest first-quarter showing in U.S. wind-energy history, according to the American Wind Energy Association, a trade group. Read the press release here.

California led the nation with 370 megawatts of new wind power. Two of the state's top three wind regimes are near the north and south ends of the San Joaquin Valley. The third area is near Palm Springs. In 2011, about 5% of California's power came from wind. More here.

The 52% increase over the same period last year set a record for first-quarter installations, and continued a five-year surge. "The last five years have been marked by unprecedented policy stability, and in response, wind power has delivered," said AWEA CEO Denise Bode.

This AOL white paper suggests that companies are rushing to get turbines installed before the Production Tax Credit expires Dec. 31. It also suggests that 2012 could be bumpy for the wind industry globally if Europe dials back on subsidies.

Wind power contributed 35% of all new electric generating capacity in the U.S. between 2007 and 2011. The industry employs about 75,000 people in the United States. Bode said about 37,000 jobs could disappear, many of them in U.S. manufacturing, if the tax credit is suspended Dec. 31. By contrast, extending the credit  could generate 100,000 jobs in four years, she said.

President Obama supports extending the credit. See this from The Hill. A bipartisan effort also is under way.

Industry officials noted that improved technology is allowing wind energy to be gathered from regions that were previously considered inadequate. That trend, they said, is reflected in New Hampshire, Arizona, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, where wind power grew at high rates in first quarter 2012.

Meanwhile, construction of new turbines is greatest in Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, California and Illinois.

Photo of wind turbines near Palm Springs by California Energy Commission

Turbine Cowboys: Keeping it real 30 stories up

The new Weather Channel show  "Turbine Cowboys" is pretty compelling TV. Turbine technicians 300 feet up (click here) battle the elements to maintain the blades on these huge energy-producing machines. The episode I saw featured technicians attempting to safely climb a huge ice-covered tower in Alaska.

The four-episode show is part of a larger Weather Channel series called "Braving the Elements," which also features crews restoring lights during bad weather and iron workers on skyscrapers, bridges and other towering structures.

I'm not a big fan of reality TV - Boy, do I dislike those screaming housewives and the Jersey Shore bunch - but I watch this one, in part because it helps showcase an emerging clean-energy technology that diversifies the nation's energy supply.

The United States will never give up oil - it is practically woven into the country's DNA - but we need to balance things out. Oil prices are too volatile and unpredictable, which wreak havoc on businesses' ability to budget. And the military deems our dependence upon oil a security risk.


Wind and solar energy are ways to decrease that footprint. Yes, turbines don't turn when the wind doesn't blow, and solar energy isn't produced when it's dark, but researchers are quickly perfecting energy storage. It won't be long before  intermittency isn't a problem. And, yes, solar is more costly, but prices are falling as the industry builds heft and as technology advances.

The "Turbine Cowboys" episode I watched featured a safety expert from Tehachapi, a Kern County city that is home to one of the largest wind farms in the nation. Thousands of turbines dot the hills around a mountain pass, and the industry helps boost the local economy. Read more in this tehachapinews.com article.

Some people may debate the cultural significance of reality TV, but this show raises the profile of a rather obscure profession, and casts a spotlight on a small piece of the energy infrastructure. Maybe it will give a shot in the arm to the wind industry.

 Video by The Weather Channel

Stockton students looking for way to take winning design to state competition




A 3-foot tall wind turbine made of PVC pipe, balsa wood and duct tape earned four students from Stagg High School in Stockton top honors in a regional science and engineering competition, and now the "Wind Team" is seeking funding to attend state finals in May in Santa Barbara.

Students in Stagg's Math, Engineering and Science Achievement (MESA) program beat out 19 other teams in Northern California to get a chance to compete against four other regional winners at the MESA state finals May 11-12.

The group devoted hundreds of hours in class and after school and many prototypes to come up with a functioning wind turbine that wowed the judges. It wasn't easy, said Dr. Maria Garcia-Sheets, director of the Pacific MESA Center at University of the Pacific, who oversees MESA programs in San Joaquin County.

The team re-engineered designs from previous years to cut the turbine weight in half. "They re-engineered and cut pieces they thought were redundant, and changed the blade design," she said. The students tested about 25 blade configurations before selecting a final version.

  "And it wasn't just the design," she said. "They had to write a 15-page technical paper, present a speech and devise a technical board. They had to be very articulate about the physics and  mathematical equations."

 Needless to say, the students' Math and Engineering skills were tested. "They have gotten good at Math and Science," Garcia-Sheets said. "The MESA program brings together hands-on activities that makes Math and Science come alive."

The students and supporters would like to see them come alive in Santa Barbara, but a tight budget may keep them home. So, they are seeking financial support to pay for the $3,000 charter bus and lodging.

"This program keeps students excited, engaged and involved," Garcia-Sheets said, adding that a member of last year's team who now attends University of the Pacific in Stockton plans to work in the wind-energy industry.

Photo of members of the Wind Team by Andrew Walter, Stagg High School teacher

A Salad Basket of Green News




The San Joaquin Valley is known as the world's salad bowl because we produce so many crops - about $20 billion annually.

With that theme in mind comes today salad basket of green news, along with links:

1/ I don't like heights, so changing careers to become a wind technician is out. But here's a video of a former cabinetmaker who did just that in Tehachapi. You would never catch me up there! This is courtesy of CNN and Solardude1: http://vikingmservices.blogspot.com/2009/06/segment-on-california-generating-green.html

2/ The DOE 2010 report on wind energy. Some headwinds possible: http://www1.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/pdfs/51783.pdf

3/ A 2010 recap of fuel cells, which are expanding rapidly ( Includes photo of Tulare fuel cell project. Pictured above):
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/pdfs/2010_market_report.pdf

4/ New Brookings report on Green jobs, with figures for Fresno, Bakersfield and other metropolitan areas:.http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2011/0713_clean_economy.aspx

The Winds Of Change Propel Clean Energy





It was in the 1980s when I first became interested in renewable energy. I was just entering my 30s and working in the newsroom of the Palm Springs Desert Sun, a daily newspaper serving the desert communities east of Riverside.

Palm Springs is a gateway to the San Gorgonio Pass, one of the windiest spots in California. I covered the attorneys in the county courthouse and the emerging wind industry (the hot air beat), which was taking advantage of the seemingly unrelenting breezes and tax breaks to grow the renewable-energy industry.

I was fascinated by the turbines beginning to pop up on the hilltops. I still get excited when they appear as backdrops in a movie or television show. (Did you see them on the first episode of last season's Amazing Race?) The whap-whap of the turbine blades was an interesting scenic diversion, even though they, in the 1980s, seemed to me like little more than a novelty.

Fast forward more than two decades, and wind energy is serious business. Today, windmills could power 829,000 households - nearly double since 2002- and projections call for wind to provide 5% of the state's electricity by 2013, according to calWEA, a nonprofit in California supported by the wind industry.

Much of that power comes from the Altamont Pass outside Tracy, the area near Palm Springs and the Tehachapi Wind Farm, just off the southern tip of the San Joaquin Valley, which has been my home for almost 25 years. I live near Fresno, which doesn't have many wind turbines but is I'm-burning-the-hair-off-my-head hot during the summer. Thus, solar energy is gaining a larger profile, as evidenced by dozens of projects proposed between Stockton and the base of the Grapevine.

Agriculture operations are among the expanding users of solar energy in the Valley. Check out the latest from a pistachio processor in Tulare County, who just hooked up to the sun to help run his business. California led the nation in 2009 with almost 2,000 growers and ranchers generating electricity from renewable power, according to this report.

Sure, wind and solar remain bit players in the overall energy arena, but they are clearly gaining stature. I can almost hear the renewables movement picking up speed as large and small businesses take up the mantle of clean energy.

Companies such as Whole Foods, Intel and Kohl's are among the world's largest purchasers of renewable energy, according to this new study. In fact, Intel and Whole Foods buy all of their energy from renewable sources (Whole Foods uses only wind energy).

Clearly, those two companies, and the others on the list, are sending a signal: Going green is good socially and economically. I'm sure they wouldn't be doing it if it didn't generate green to the bottom line as well. Check out this report from a pilot program in Wisconsin.

Big Business and the military, which has declared its dependence on fossil fuel a national security issue, are leading the clean energy (which includes efficiency) charge, and helping fuel some economic growth. This story out of Milwaukee notes that the military's solar program was responsible for a manufacturer adding a second shift.

This all comes despite legislators who want to slash programs. I can't help but think we are on the ground floor of a green revolution.