CleanTechnica

A new study out of the University of North Carolina (UNC) shows that North Carolina could have 100% of its power coming from off-shore wind turbines, “without significant human or environmental impacts.”

Plans are now for Duke Energy to build three pilot off-shore wind turbines in state waters, which would make North Carolina “the first state to generate wind power from in-water turbines.”

North Carolina has a goal of supplying 12.5% of its power from renewable energy by 2021. However, marine ecologist and co-author of the new study, Pete Peterson, says much more is possible. “We concluded that you could generate enough electricity from wind turbines off the coast to power the entire state. You’d have to put up a tremendous number of turbines, and the power grid infrastructure would need to be upgraded. But even if you developed one-sixth of the offshore region suitable for wind farms, you could generate twenty percent of the state’s power needs.”

The UNC study was commissioned to examine the human and ecological viability of generating power from wind turbines off the coast and to identify the best locations for such turbines. It involved researchers from UNC, North Carolina State University (NCSU) and East Carolina University (ECU), as well as “experts on birds, bats, insects, sea turtles, fish, butterflies and marine mammals…. duck hunters, ecotourism professionals, whale watchers, park service workers, academics and fishermen.”

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Two breakthroughs in renewable energy have been pioneered in combination by John Douglas; an investment banker with many renewable energy start-ups under his belt.

Together, the two technologies in combination could provide the wind power deployment equivalent of  the invention of the coal-fired steam electric power station, which -  in tandem with the railroad to deliver the coal – changed power generation in the 19th century.

1. Transmission Developers would provide electricity transmission in underwater cables (previous story this week), that can be lain in aqueducts, flooded quarries, riverbeds and lakes, or down ocean coastlines – clearing the one big hindrance to the development of renewable energy, which is the new transmission needed, and the NIMBYism that succeeds in preventing that from being built, because these would be out of sight, under water.

2. The other,  Riverbank Power – an equally innovative breakthrough, would provide a complete solution to storing wind power (previous story)  effectively making it dispatchable base-load power. Read the rest of this entry »

Generating 20 percent of America’s electricity with wind, which is crucial to our future safety, growth and prosperity, would require building up to 22,000 miles of new high-voltage transmission lines.

But how to get renewable energy from the empty windy plains far from population centers, when nobody ever wants to see any more transmission line built anywhere near anybody? Ever?

Here’s one novel solution. Transmission cables placed out of sight under water provide an apparently uncontroversial way to send renewable electricity from the isolated and desolate areas of the nation that are abundant in wind – to where we live, inside heavy cables down the coasts under the ocean, or  along riverbeds or along the floors of lakes.

To put it another way: “The fish don’t vote,” as Edward M. Stern of PowerBridge, one company that is now working on laying underwater cable to send power down the Atlantic coast, told Mathew Wald of The New York Times. Read the rest of this entry »

Tomorrow, a bipartisan coalition of governors from 29 states will descend upon Washington to urge congress to pass the legislation America needs to boost wind power, providing clean safe permanent energy and the jobs that go with it. They are bringing their recommendations in a report titled “Great Expectations.”

To bring the lessons they have already  learned in pioneering this legislative path forward for the nation with state Renewable Energy Standards, the Governors’ Wind Energy Coalition governors are coming to offer advice as the Senate sponsors of a climate bill prepare to unveil their own comparable Federal legislation, perhaps as soon as this week.

The coalition chairman, Iowa (15% powered by wind) Democratic Gov. Chet Culver says they come in peace. “We offer our assistance in working with Congress and the administration to achieve one of the nation’s principal energy goals, energy independence, and increasing the role that wind energy plays in meeting that challenge.” Read the rest of this entry »

Claiming that the majority of the Recovery Act green stimulus is going to foreign wind companies, four Democrats have introduced legislation today to require that the grant money only fund clean energy projects relying on parts 100% manufactured in the US and creating the bulk of their jobs domestically and subject to ‘buy American’ provisions, requiring they rely on iron, steel and goods manufactured in the US.

But the remedy proposed by Senators Senators Schumer, Casey, Brown and Tester in the American Renewable Energy Jobs Act actually would hurt American jobs, and slow the development of an American wind sector, because no wind developer could meet the strict requirements of their ‘Buy American’ amendment–the United States simply does not have the manufacturing capacity yet to produce 100% of the turbine parts.

Under the green New Deal of the Recovery Act stimulus funds, an astounding 16 Gigawatts-worth of renewable energy projects has been funded. This will be a huge step forward in bring America back to the forefront of the new renewable energy industry sector. But right now, we do lag a decade behind Europe in wind energy.

Because its legislatures approved Kyoto in 1995, foreign wind companies now have a decade’s start on US wind companies. As a result, most wind projects in the US currently have foreign ownership, with or without the green new deal of the Recovery Act.

However, as Denise Bode, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association has pointed out; 100% of the funds are in lieu of a US tax credit for investment in projects supplied more than 50% by US iron, steel and manufactured parts.

“The truth is, by law, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grants can only be used to finance projects that are being built in the US,” the AWEA’s Bode said. Read the rest of this entry »

South Dakota’s potential for utility-scale wind projects could be seriously curtailed by three bills now in the House that reduce the attractiveness of investment in a permanent, safe and clean energy source that could bring billions in much needed revenue to the state.

Like cutting itself off at the knees to save on shoe leather, the Republican-held legislature is considering three pieces of very short sighted legislation that cut off the few tax breaks that wind investment had.

Senate Bill 123 would remove all incentives for large capital improvement projects.
Senate Bill 195 would eliminate any refunds on projects that cost more than $40 million.
House Bill 1060 heard yesterday would cut tax refunds for large commercial projects.

Like all new power stations, wind projects are “large capital improvement projects”, “cost more than $40 million” and are “large commercial projects”. The shortsighted laws curtail wind power.

“When you’re talking investments in wind, you’re talking about heavy, capital-intensive projects. A cheap project for us is $300 million.” says Steve Wegman executive director of the South Dakota Wind Energy Association.”We have a huge problem coming down the pike, and we need consistent public policy.”
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Yesterday Attorney General Jerry Brown  announced a completely new kind of renewable energy legislation, introduced by State Assembly member Nancy Skinner (D) – designed to add more renewable energy storage to the grid.

You’ve heard of Renewable Energy Standards. These are (state level only, so far) rules that require that electric utilities add more renewable energy every year, in the 24 states that have them.

Using the legislation, four Northeast States have been able to reduce their greenhouse gases on an EU scale – to below 1990 levels by contributing to the build-out of about 17 Gigawatts of renewable energy along with neighboring Canadian provinces. Other states, Like Michigan, are on track to do so with elegant policy design that gets solar rooftops down to as little as $6,000 each.

Reducing greenhouse gas levels below 1990 levels simply takes replacing the dirty 19th century energy they used to have on the grid with more clean renewable 21st century energy. That’s what passing Renewable Energy Standards does: it forces utilities to replace old power plants that they have grandfathered in to evade Clean Air Act rules for the last 40 years, and add more low carbon electricity.

But California might be the first state to implement another necessity borne from adding more renewable energy to the grid: adding more storage for renewable energy. Read the rest of this entry »

Two power generation companies in New South Wales, Australia are planning to set up two fossil fuel based power plants of capacity 1000 MW each. The developers do not see the state’s renewable energy potential as large enough to make any significant contribution to supply the growing power demands.

Delta Electricity and Macquarie Generation have claimed that New South Wales does not have the adequate solar or wind energy potential in order to reach the Mandatory Renewable Energy standard of 20% power from renewable sources by 2020, set by the Australian government. Therefore, they have proposed to set up two massive power plants preferably based on ‘clean coal’ technology.

According to the New South Wales government website, the state has tremendous wind energy potential with extensive power grid to support transmission. Read the rest of this entry »

A new analysis by the European Wind Energy Association finds that the European Union (EU) is going to exceed its target of producing 20% of its energy from renewable energy sources by 2020.

The reports looked at all forms of renewable energy. It found that 13 of the 27 EU countries are set to meet their target, 8 are set to exceed it and the remaining 6 are expected to fall short.

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By 2050, 69% of utilities expect that a combination of central power stations in tandem with distributed renewable energy (typically rooftop solar PV and small wind) will supply most of the nation’s electricity, according to a survey by Black and Veatch.

But a surprising 13% of utilities believe that an “Al Gore Electra-net” model of distributed rooftop power will be the dominant way we get our electricity in the US by 2050.

“Most of our respondents (69%) see a hybrid electric utility industry model embracing a combination of both central generation and distributed resources evolving by 2050. Such a system would include both centralized base-load generation and distributed renewable generation made feasible by advanced smart grid technology.”

Imagine if you believed your whole industry would be obsolete by 2050. That’s only forty years from now!

If you believed your industry would be gone in forty years, would you make long term capital investments in electric power generation? I sure wouldn’t. Expect more blackouts on the central grid as we get closer to the half-century!
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