Into the Wind - the AWEA Blog

Koch Industries, the privately held, Wichita, KS-based oil & gas giant, was “honored” last week by the renewable energy advocacy group Repower America with its “Snake Oil Award.” Said Repower America Campaign Manager Dave Boundy, “Not only do they pollute our environment, they also pollute our democracy by funding climate denial groups that work to mislead and confuse Americans.” Repower America coupled the award with a new Web site devoted to the company.

Koch’s list of activities is long and impressive. The environmental group

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This is the way we hoped it would go in the 1980s. While much of the wind energy industry has been focused on bulk power generation for the large-scale utility systems of the U.S. and Europe, there has always been a segment that cast a longing eye on the remote communities of the world that depend on very expensive diesel fuel for electricity. The potential market was obvious, and engineers have labored for decades to exploit it, only to be thwarted by market realities—in most cases, the companies seeking to supply turbines have been small and poorly capitalized, and the challenge of maintaining reliable equipment operation at installations separated by thousands of miles has been daunting.

As time has gone by, though, the companies venturing into the market have gotten ...

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The New York Times carried an article this week about Virginia’s public utility commission turning down a proposed wind project, on the grounds that it would increase ratepayers’ electricity bills by a whopping 0.2%. Said the commissioners, “The ratepayers of Virginia must be protected from costs for renewable energy that are unreasonably high.”

Let’s see now—the monthly electricity bill for my family’s home is roughly $100 per month. Multiplying $100 times 0.2% means, yikes, that unreasonably costly renewable energy would set us back … 20 cents a month. Hmmm, now if we had that 20 cents back, what could we do with it? A cup of coffee is out, nobody sells coffee that cheaply anymore. Difficult question.

The Times reporters, for some reason, didn’t spell the ...

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Someone asked us the other day what information we had on the lifecycle emissions of natural gas, and I recalled seeing a report a few months ago suggesting that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the production and use of natural gas from shale could be roughly comparable to GHG emissions from coal. If true, this would be a big deal, since we are being told daily that the answer to all of America’s energy needs is right in front of us, in the gas contained within the vast geological formation known as the Marcellus Shale ...

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Draka, a Dutch cable company that is the third largest in Europe, said yesterday that it will open an office in an existing building in Hutchinson, Kans., to provide components to a Siemens wind turbine nacelle factory in that city. The Draka facility will initially be small—plans call for five to 10 employees to start, and double that number within a year.

...

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It’s a science story that has been around since 1990 or so: global warming, by reducing the temperature difference between Earth’s poles and its equator, will lead to lower wind speeds. It made the rounds again this week, following a new report from a researcher at the University of Texas-Austin on the same (now 20-year-old) issue.

And it may indeed happen at some point, though global climate predictions are full of uncertainties. In fact, just a few days ago, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released an “Arctic Report Card,” which warned that the severe ice melting the Arctic Ocean has experienced in recent years may be affecting weather patterns over the U.S. and elsewhere. A

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Illinois’s wind energy supply chain includes more than 100 companies with a total of over 15,000 employees, according to a new report from the Chicago-based Environmental Law & Policy Center.

Said the Center in a news release, “From old-line manufacturers who are retooling to build wind turbine components for the new clean energy economy to corporate headquarters for major wind power developers, to software, financial and support services, the wind industry means real business for Illinois.”

The Chicago Sun-Times added some depth ...

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Here’s a nice graphic from the New York Times that summarizes what is happening with the U.S. and wind energy, compared to Europe and China. As we’ve said previously here, it matches the policy disparity between these contenders for global wind energy leadership and new manufacturing jobs. It’s hard to find a clearer statement of the need for strong, supportive government policy in order to build a large new manufacturing industry.

The Times ascribes the less-than-robust outlook for U.S. wind to “a weak economy and abundant supplies of energy from inexpensive fossil fuels.” About ...

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Congrats to Kenneth P. Green of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) on a dubious achievement--stuffing the most disinformation on wind into a brief blog post that I’ve seen lately.

In a post entitled “Voting Against the Wind?”, Mr. Green crows about the fact that AWEA found it necessary to respond to lies about wind energy contained in recent political campaign ads, and basically expresses the hope that the recent election spells an end to this promising new mainstream clean energy technology.

Here’s a quick rundown of Mr. Green’s ...

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A new study of property values on land near a major wind farm in Illinois has come up with some interesting findings. Broadly summarized, the study finds that property values were negatively affected before the wind farm was built, but rebounded after it was in place. The study thus adds to a fairly consistent set of findings over the years to the effect that wind development does not damage property values, though with the caveat that there may well be a temporary negative impact.

"Wind Farm Proximity and Property Values: A Pooled Hedonic Regression Analysis of Property Values in Central Illinois, 2010" was authored by ...

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