Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Solar energy may lead in sex appeal, but wind remains by far the biggest driver of new renewable energy in the United States. Last year, despite the ailing economy, the U.S. wind industry installed about 10,000 megawatts of new capacity, 40 percent more than in 2008 and a new national record.

By contrast, the U.S. solar industry installed only 481 MW of new capacity, or less than five percent as much as wind.

A report issued today by the U.S. Department of Energy on the wind technology market notes that wind accounted for 39 percent of all new U.S. generating capacity last year, ahead of new coal power, though just behind natural gas. That’s a phenomenal accomplishment, though China exceeded the United States for the first time in new installed wind capacity.

The wind industry certainly leads in its aspirations as well. About 300 GW of proposed new wind projects have been put in so-called transmission interconnection queues, used for expansion planning by grid operators and utilities. That figure represents 60 percent of all new generating capacity in those queues, and is nearly three times higher than the queue for natural gas projects. That’s all impressive, but as the DOE report cautions, some fraction of proposed wind projects will undoubtedly never materialize.

Unfortunately, all this investment in the wind industry isn’t translating into more green jobs, partly because of rising competition from foreign turbine manufacturers. Last year the wind industry employed about 85,000 people according to the American Wind Energy Assocation, unchanged from 2008.

Among other challenges, the cost of installing new wind power capacity rose in 2009, likely curbing new demand. Turbine prices are running more than twice as much as they did a decade ago, and finding transmission capacity to deliver energy from remote projects continues to be a headache.

As of the end of 2009, though, the United States still led the world in cumulative installed wind capacity, at just over 35,000 MW, compared to China and Germany at 28,000 MW. U.S.-based turbines now provide enough energy in an average year to meet about 2.5 percent of this country’s electricity consumption, according to the DOE report.

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:

Google Energy will buy 114 megawatts of wind energy from a wind farm in Iowa for 20 years at an undisclosed fixed rate beginning on July 30. The deal is the first for the Google subsidiary after it received federal approval earlier this year to trade clean power on wholesale power markets. The company says it will sell the electricity on the regional spot market for renewable energy certificates to offset Google's carbon emissions. The Iowa wind farm is owned by NextEra Energy Resources LLC.

London is launching a $177 million program to develop bicycle "superhighways" to connect central London with towns outside the city. Fully developed, it would be the world's second-largest urban cycle hire system after Paris. London Mayor Boris Johnson, Barclays bank and Transport for London have opened the first two pilot routes now drawing 5,000 cycle journeys daily and aiming for 27,000 trips a day by 2013. Highly visible blue cycle lanes will have safety mirrors at junctions, stop lines at traffic lights, segregated lanes, and realignment of traffic and bus lanes to create more space for cyclists. "You have got to have a powerful and visible statement on the roads that asserts to every Londoner,  whether on two wheels or four, that the capital is a cycling city," says Johnson.

Shopping for a college with a sound environmental studies program? The 2011 Fiske Guide to Colleges reports its top 10 list for undergraduate environmental degree programs: Colby College (Maine), College of the Atlantic (Maine), UC-Davis, University of Colorado, Dartmouth College (New Hampshire), Eckerd College (Florida), Evergreen State College (Washington), University of North Carolina-Asheville, Tulane University (Louisiana), and University of Washington. Some of these colleges have appeared in other  green college lists, including the Princeton Review, College Sustainability Report Card and Sierra magazine's Cool Schools list.
 

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:

Nuclear energy startup TerraPower, backed by Bill Gates and venture capital firms, raised $35 million in new funding to continue early-stage development of a reactor fueled by nuclear waste, Reuters reports. The company is developing a "traveling wave" reactor that would run for up to 100 years without refueling. TerraPower won't build a reactor but will seek partners for development. Original investors Gates and venture capital firm Charles River Ventures and new investor Khosla Ventures joined in the latest round of financing.

Switzerland's Migros supermarket chain will offer a new product this summer -- the Norwegian-made Think City electric car. The 600-store chain will sell the Think car through a division  that has already sold 60 Think vehicles to a company that will provide them to guests at a resort in the Swiss Alps, the Grist blog reports. The Think company leased a previous version of the car to San Francisco residents in a pilot program in the 1990s, and the city may be the first to begin selling the electric car in the U.S. later this year.

Europe is building new wind farms this year at a pace to nearly match development of new gas-fired power generation, the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) says. The industry group forecast 10 gigawatts of new wind generating capacity for 2010. "It is clear that wind energy will be competing for the top spot with new power plants," says Christian Kjaer, chief executive of the EWEA. Germany and Britain are forecast to install the most new wind capacity.

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:

The BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico threatens 32 national wildlife refuges in five states -- Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Zoos and aquariums are mobilizing to offer help from veterinarians, zookeepers and animal technicians and also provide animal food and vehicles. Oiled sea turtles have been placed at the Audubon Aquatic Center in Louisiana for care and cleaning, and the Minnesota Zoo is sending toothbrushes and towels to help remove the oil caked on the turtles, the New York Times Green blog reports.

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, the water quality at local beaches this summer is cleaner and safer thanks to recent improvements in sewage systems. San Francisco's Aquatic Park, China Beach and Ocean Beach near Sloat Blvd. got A's and B's year-round for water quality, according to a study by Santa Monica-based Heal the Bay; the firm studies pathogens and bacteria levels at 465 California beaches. In winter, however, heavy rains can cause untreated sewage to flow into the bay and ocean in some areas, raising bacteria levels at a number of beaches, including popular Baker Beach in San Francisco, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

Former President George W. Bush scored some green points this week in a speech at the American Wind Energy Association's annual conference in Dallas. His ranch in Crawford, Tex., is equipped with a rainwater collector and uses geothermal energy, and Bush's presidential library at Southern Methodist University will be LEED-certified. As Texas governor, Bush signed a renewable portfolio standard that pushed Texas to the leading U.S. wind power  producer. "The overall trend in my judgment is that new technologies will find new ways to power our lives," he said. "I fully believe that hybrid plug-ins will be a transition to electric cars" and new ways to generate electricity will be needed. 

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

In the contest of corporate green-upmanship, Walmart has just won some serious bragging rights. The popular but controversial mega-retailer is already a green purchasing pioneer. Now it’s a wind energy pioneer as well.

Last Thursday, the Sam’s Club in Palmdale, Calif. activated 17 wind turbines. Now, these aren’t the 500-foot-tall jobs that dwarf most buildings and interfere with low-flying air traffic. Nor are these the 7 MW behemoths that could light a small village when the wind is blowing. Rather, they are diminutive 2.4 kW Skystream microturbines, manufactured by Southwest Wind Power and mounted atop 48-foot light poles.

The turbines will generate about 76,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, enough to meet the needs of a dozen typical homes in PG&E’s service area.

If successful in Palmdale, Walmart plans to install microturbines at other sites, including a store in Worcester, Mass.

Additionally, Walmart now buys enough commercial wind power in Texas to meet about 15 percent of its energy needs in that state. In California, the chain is adding solar panels this year to as many as 20 stores, on top of the 18 solar arrays already installed here. 

Walmart isn’t the first company to pursue on-site wind generation. Adobe powers its San Jose headquarters in part with 20 small vertical-axis turbines made by Windspire Energy in Reno.

Sales of small wind turbines in the United States grew 15 percent last year, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Customers can take a 30 percent federal tax credit on purchases of systems, and additional rebates are available from PG&E.

But don’t run out and buy a turbine for your backyard or roof without a lot of careful research. You could be in for a big disappointment.

Most areas don’t have sufficient wind to make them economical—a typical home system can cost $5,000/kW--and even if they do, zoning regulations and neighborhood opposition may make it more trouble than it’s worth.

Still, happy owners abound. Check out the American Wind Energy Association’s web pages for local success stories from Brentwood, Glen Ellen and Tracy.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

In an historic boost for the future of renewable energy in the United States, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar today approved the long-delayed Cape Wind project, which could well become the country’s first offshore wind generation plant.

According to the Interior Department, the project would meet three-quarters of the electricity demand of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Island, create hundreds of construction jobs, and offset nearly 700,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

The project  has been in limbo for nearly a decade due to opposition from residents (including the late Senator Ted Kennedy), local environmentalists, Indian tribes and others. Scott Brown, the newly elected Republican senator from Massachusetts, recently joined the nay-sayers. And lawsuits are sure to continue tying up the project for some time.

But the project, if successful, could help unlock the vast potential for offshore wind energy on the East Coast of the United States, where the winds blow hard and the continental shelf is shallow. While offshore wind turbines are likely to be expensive to erect and maintain, they would be near population centers, minimizing the need for long distance transmission lines.

According to estimates by the Department of Energy, offshore wind resources could generate as much as 900 GW of power. 

A recent study for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory concluded that the Eastern United States could get 20 percent or more of its power needs from wind energy, most of it offshore, by 2024. But political battles and fragmented federal, state and local policies have kept this potential locked up.

While rival parties in the United States continue to sue and countersue, developers in Europe last year built eight new offshore wind farms with combined capacity of 577 megawatts. Another 1000 MW of offshore wind capacity are expected to be installed this year, according to the European Wind Energy Association. The UK hopes to develop 32 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2020.

Ironically, even U.S. developers of approved offshore wind projects would have a hard time building them because this country lacks the specialty vessels needed to install the latest generation of giant modern turbines.

According to Renewable Energy World, “The Jones Act precludes any European based specialty vessel from taking part in commerce in U.S. waters, including the installation of offshore energy projects. While many have suggested that ships used by the oil industry could simply be converted, the cost would likely be prohibitive and U.S. ship builders will have to build wind specific vessels . . .”

Don’t you love it?

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Rising out of the sand and towering above the cactus of the Californa desert, exotic newcomers are planting deep roots. With ramrod-straight stalks rising more than 200 feet, and giant three-leaf extensions that rotate in the wind, they dwarf the native flora and fauna.

These are wind turbines, planted by developers to take advantage of some of the best wind resources remaining in California. While solar projects naturally get all the attention when it comes to renewable energy projects in the desert, wind power is becoming a surprisingly big player there.

In fact, the federal Bureau of Land Management has 63 wind project applications pending in its huge Desert District, compared to 53 front-line solar proposals, according to Greg Miller, renewable energy program manager for BLM's California Desert District.

“This is where everything is happening,” he told NEXT100. “The California desert is not a very good wind resource compared to the Midwestern states, but the big advantage is it’s close to market and to a lot of existing transmission lines.”

A report issued last week by the state’s Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative estimates a potential for about 11,000 megawatts of economically viable new wind capacity in California, mostly in the Southern California desert. (About 1,900 MW of potantial capacity are located in the Lassen area in Northern California and another 900 MW in Solano County.)

About seven desert wind projects greater than 100 MW are in advanced planning stages.The largest is the Alta-Oak Creek Mojave Project. Based in Kern County on private land, it will consist of as many as 320 turbines and generate as much as 800 megawatts of power for use by Southern California Edison.

PG&E has also proposed building a wind generating plant in Eastern Kern County, with a capacity of up to 246 MW. It could provide enough energy to serve the needs of about 100,000 average homes and contribute significantly the utility’s efforts to meet California’s Renewable Portfolio Standard.

Nancy Rader, executive director of the California Wind Energy Association, says that wind projects have much less environmental impact, and require much less mitigation, than solar projects because they leave most land undisturbed and don’t block wildlife corridors. Endangered desert tortoises can wander freely among the turbines, unlike fenced-off solar projects.

On the other hand, she concedes, “we do have avian impacts that are not easy to deal with,” especially given the expanded range of the endangered California condor.

In addition, tall turbines may interfere with military aircraft and radar operations. “Many desert wind projects may face military conflict issues,” Rader said. “There are a lot of bases down there.”

BLM’s Miller said processing all the wind and solar project applications also remains a big challenge, but his office is making progress.

“Today we have 12 employees,” he said. “A year ago we had three. And two years ago it was just me.”

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Finally, 67 years after it first opened, the hit musical Oklahoma has received official confirmation from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory that "the wind blows sweeping down the plains" with dramatic force.

According to a new report from NREL, the wind generation potential in Oklahoma is nearly 1.8 million gigawatt-hours annually, or more than a third of total U.S. electric generation in 2008 (4.1 million GWh). 

And Oklahoma' s wind resources rank only 9th among states in the continental United States. Texas leads the pack with annual potential wind generation of 6.5 million GWh--50 percent more than total U.S. generation in 2008. Other Plains states also have immense potential, as shown in this map.

And what about California? It ranks a measley 19th, with potential generation of only 105,000 GWh. On the other hand, PG&E's total electricity sales in 2008 were 82,000 GWh, so that's hardly a trivial number.

These new estimates represent a huge increase since a 1991 asessment by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which found California's total potential to be about 59,000 GWh annually, Oklahoma's at 725,000 GWh, and Texas's at 1,190,000 GWh. (Mississippi still takes last place, at zero potential.)

Nationwide, NREL's new estimate of potential wind energy is more than three times the old estimate and more than nine times total U.S. electricity consumption.

The increased estimate reflects in part the enhanced ability to today's immense turbines to grab wind energy at heights of 80 meters or more, where it blows relatively unobstructed by surface effects and obstructions.

The gap between existing and potential resources is immense, even in California, which was one of the earliest adopters of wind power. Total installed wind capacity in California was 2,794 MW in 2009, less than a tenth of its estimated potential capacity of 34,000 MW. Texas had more than three times as much installed capacity, 9,410 MW, but a total potential more than two hundred times that, according to NREL.

The big unknown is what fraction of the potential can ever be realized, especially given intense local opposition to siting of huge (and to some eyes, ugly) turbines and transmission towers near populated communities, recreation areas and sensitive habitat.

Nearly everywhere you go, from Cape Cod to California's Mohave Desert, activists are seeking to block large wind energy projects. There's even one doctor who claims people living near such facilities may suffer from "Wind Turbine Syndrome," which allegedly brings on sleep disorders, headaches and panic attacks. These claims have been debunked by other scientists assembled by the wind industry, but good luck trying to stamp them out once they're all over the Internet. 

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

PG&E has become the first utility to join the American Wind Wildlife Institute (AWWI),  a national organization committed to peaceful coexistence between wind energy and wildlife.

The organization was founded in late 2008 by 20 environmental groups, state wildlife agencies and wind energy companies to focus their collective expertise on protecting wildlife through research, mapping, mitigation and public education on best practices in wind farm siting and habitat protection.

Members include Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, BP Wind Energy, Clipper Windpower Inc., Environmental Defense Fund, GE Energy, Horizon Wind Energy, Iberdrola Renewables, National Audubon Society, Natural Resources Defense Council, and others--but until now, no electric utilities.

PG&E's decision to become a member reflects the utility's longstanding use of wind power--dating back at least to the 1980s. Wind power is sure to represent a growing share of the utility's generation as PG&E continues taking aggressive steps to add to its portfolio of clean energy.

In addition, PG&E announced last month plans to buy and operate a major wind production facility in Kern County. The proposed Manzana Wind Project, if approved and built, would provide enough energy to meet the needs of about 100,000 average homes. The project will undergo careful environmental reviews that consider, among other things, its potential impact on birds and other wildlife.

PG&E's membership in AWWI also reflects the utility's heightened interest in environmental stewardship. Two decades ago, PG&E became a founding member of the Avian Power Line Interaction Committee with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The utility's Avian Protection Plan, which includes retrofitting thousands of power poles to make them safer for birds, is considered a national model.

Some studies suggest that wind farms cause a tiny percentage of bird deaths compared to vehicles, buildings, and even communications towers. But concerns over the high rate of bird kills in Altamont Pass and bat deaths in East Coast wind plants have prompted the wind industry and its allies to fund significant research on the siting and operation of turbines to minimize risks to wildlife. AWWI's exclusive attention to that issue should help advance this collaborative effort as the wind industry ramps up its installations.

AWWI Vice President Stu Webster said the organization is still in the "nurturing stages." Its early focus is on efforts to map wind and wildlife resources so developers can make more informed siting and mitigation decisions.  

One of its biggest and most important initiatives will be to find ways to share proprietary data across the industry to help stakeholders better assess wildlife issues. "The legal and competitive issues need to be harmonized with the need for data to improve our scientific understanding," Webster said. "NGOs, academia, government agencies and industry all want this. It's critically necessary to answer the questions that have been raised."

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

The U.S. wind industry hurtled forward at gail force last year, flying in the face of of the nation's deep recession. But California, once the leader in wind energy, seemed caught in the doldrums.

The American Wind Energy Association reported yesterday  that the U.S. wind industry "broke all previous records by installing nearly 10,000 megawatts (MW) of new generating capacity in 2009," thanks in part to stimulus from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. In fact, wind was on par last year with natural gas as a source of new generation--a major feat for the renewable power industry.

But little of that growth took place in California. The Golden State added only 277 MW of wind capacity, compared to 2,292 MW in Texas and 879 MW in Iowa. California still ranks third in wind power, but its growth of just over 10 percent last year was dwarfed by national growth of 39 percent.

I'm not the only one who was struck by our state's sluggish performance. Bill Opalka, editor of Renewablesbiz.com, commented,

It's hard to miss that the former leader, California, the place that kept wind on the map for 20 years, is falling further and further behind. . . . If the state with the most aggressive mandates in the country has trouble matching sparsely populated states - and those happen to be ones without mandates - what chance does California have it making its deadlines? A question worth asking, even if it's one beyond the scope of a report like this one.

I asked Nancy Rader, executive director of the California Wind Energy Association (CalWEA),  for some perspective on the industry's difficulties in our fair state.  She noted that it was inevitable that other states, many of which have superior wind resources, would begin catching up to California.

Nonetheless, some of our wounds are self-inflicted. "It is very hard to build in California because we are waiting for transmission development and it takes years to slog through the permitting process, whether you are on private or federal land," Rader said.

Partly as a result, Rader said, demand for wind energy in California is spawning development in surrounding states like Oregon and Washington.

The good news is that a new Tehachapi transmission line being built in Southern California should enable a host of new wind projects by 2013--including one announced by PG&E.

"Hopefully within five years we will see California wind capacity more than double because of the Tehachapi transmission line," Rader said.