Sky Windpower is an airborne wind generation system that is often given glowing reviews in the inadequately critical popular and technical press. In 2008, they were listed in TIME Magazine’s Best Inventions of the Year. In 2011, they were featured on the front cover of Popular Mechanics. They continue to … [continued]
One of the persistent myths of wind energy is that vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) are better than the iconic three-bladed horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWTs). A wrinkle on this myth has surfaced over the past couple of years, that the balance of engineering compromises favours VAWTs for offshore applications. … [continued]
Results for my poll on what will be the “Top-Selling Electric Car In US & Europe In 2014” are in. The winner for both locations isn’t a big surprise, but it’s interesting to see how the splits turned out, and the differences between the US & European results. Have a … [continued]
I finally got around to scrolling through all the answers in our recent reader survey. I knew I was setting myself up for trouble by including completely open-ended questions — it takes a lot longer to go through all of them. However, I knew that would also be more helpful. … [continued]
Wind farm setbacks are an unnecessarily controversial issue in many parts of the world. While public health organizations, major utilities, the government, and the wind industry have worked closely together to find a good balance, to establish guidelines and laws, and to put in place modelling software to assist in … [continued]
Nine major and statistically reliable studies covering roughly 270,000 property transactions by different respected and independent organizations in three different countries spread over fifteen years have found no correlation between operating wind turbines and negative property values (in fact, three found slight but statistically insignificant improvements). Another low reliability study … [continued]
Kite-based wind generation was first proposed in the 1940s, the seminal power potential paper was published in 1980 and it was first demonstrated in 1986. So why isn’t there a single production system or even an a quarter-scale production prototype in existence today? Each of the combinations of design choices … [continued]
NIMBY — Not In My Back Yard — is a nice crisp acronym and gets bandied about a lot when discussing opposition to wind energy and other renewables. But it is inadequate as a categorization of the various people fighting against broader penetration of renewables in energy grids worldwide. More … [continued]
Almost a year ago, Google took a 100% ownership position in Makani, an airborne wind energy company. It had previously held a $15 million position in the company, but after the tragic death of one of its founders, Makani’s future was less certain. Now it has deep pockets in Google … [continued]
I think I’ve waited long enough. Below are the results of our most recent poll (“What’s Tesla’s Biggest Challenge?“). 444 people responded, and the results (as well as the choices) were quite varied. However, there was a clear winner and a clear 2nd place. (The answer choices get cut off … [continued]
