The wind industry is getting a leg up from NASA.
The space agency has been collecting global weather data for almost a decade, which it initially used to predict storms and keep track of other weather patterns. But as part of that research, NASA’s QuickSCAT satellite has also been monitoring the speed, direction and power of wind traveling over the ocean’s surface.
That’s pretty useful information for anyone considering an offshore wind farm, and NASA published it all this week in a scientific journal. Some of the best sources of potential wind energy are off California’s Mendocino coast (I know it’s been plenty windy just about every time I visited), Tasmania, and Tierra Del Fuego, regions where land formations channel wind into a concentrated jet that blows almost year round. I’m sure the locals could probably have tipped off wind developers to these spots, but NASA’s findings also identified a few areas in the middle of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, which could be candidates for floating wind farms.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
Connecting the Dots
Texas, which currently has more wind power capacity than any other state, seems to have gotten ahead of itself.
The state has enough turbines to generate about 5,000 megawatts, almost 3 percent of its needs, and has plans to expand to 9,000 megawatts by yearend and 15,000 megawatts within a few years. Experts say that the wide open spaces in West Texas get enough wind to one day produce about 30 percent of the state’s power.
So where’s the problem? Turns out that there aren’t enough power lines in place to move the power from West Texas, where there’s plenty of wind and not so many people, to the rest of the state, where people need it. The Public Utility Commission is considering a few plans to build more lines, which will cost between $3 and $6 billion.
This hiccup in wind power seems to have opened the door to critics, who are, not surprisingly, closely tied to companies that operate traditional, coal and natural gas plants. Why spend so much money now, they argue, for an unreliable energy source that tends to die down in the afternoon, right when it’s most needed?
To that I say, why continue to support outdated power technologies that depend on resources that will eventually be exhausted? And if we continue to pursue short-sighted policies like refusing to build the lines to connecting turbines to the places where the power is needed, it’s pretty much certain that we’ll use up our finite resources faster and will have no backup plan in place for when they are gone.
The state has enough turbines to generate about 5,000 megawatts, almost 3 percent of its needs, and has plans to expand to 9,000 megawatts by yearend and 15,000 megawatts within a few years. Experts say that the wide open spaces in West Texas get enough wind to one day produce about 30 percent of the state’s power.
So where’s the problem? Turns out that there aren’t enough power lines in place to move the power from West Texas, where there’s plenty of wind and not so many people, to the rest of the state, where people need it. The Public Utility Commission is considering a few plans to build more lines, which will cost between $3 and $6 billion.
This hiccup in wind power seems to have opened the door to critics, who are, not surprisingly, closely tied to companies that operate traditional, coal and natural gas plants. Why spend so much money now, they argue, for an unreliable energy source that tends to die down in the afternoon, right when it’s most needed?
To that I say, why continue to support outdated power technologies that depend on resources that will eventually be exhausted? And if we continue to pursue short-sighted policies like refusing to build the lines to connecting turbines to the places where the power is needed, it’s pretty much certain that we’ll use up our finite resources faster and will have no backup plan in place for when they are gone.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Leadership
I’ve seen two major public policy initiatives in the past week that made me hopeful, at first, and then pessimistic, yet again.
First the good news. The United Kingdom is making a huge push in wind power. It’s planning to spend $200 billion over the next decade to install thousands of wind turbines all over the country and offshore, as part of a long-term goal to produce 15 percent of its power from renewable resources by 2020.
The U.K. government is under no illusions that this will be an easy, or inexpensive, fix, yet it’s still willing to move forward. Business secretary John Hutton said “it is absolutely imperative that we take as much carbon as possible out of the way we generate energy… There is a cost in going green, I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But it will cost us if we don’t, because we have to factor in the climate change cost.”
That seem like real leadership, doing the right thing rather than the easy, or popular thing.
Now, for the reverse. Here in the U.S., the Bureau of Land Management is putting a freeze on all new solar energy projects.
The agency said it has received so many proposals to build solar projects on public land, more than 130 since 2005, that it has decided to stop accepting new proposals until it can conduct environmental impact reports on the ones already filed, which could take up to two years.
Solar companies have filed proposals for more than 130 projects on public land since 2005
Certainly it makes sense to be careful about installing large solar farms, but I find it hard to believe the agency couldn’t find enough people to fast-track these studies. Shutting down all development, at such a critical time for the alternative energy space, seems amazingly short-sighted. Which, I guess, is not such a huge surprise.
First the good news. The United Kingdom is making a huge push in wind power. It’s planning to spend $200 billion over the next decade to install thousands of wind turbines all over the country and offshore, as part of a long-term goal to produce 15 percent of its power from renewable resources by 2020.
The U.K. government is under no illusions that this will be an easy, or inexpensive, fix, yet it’s still willing to move forward. Business secretary John Hutton said “it is absolutely imperative that we take as much carbon as possible out of the way we generate energy… There is a cost in going green, I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But it will cost us if we don’t, because we have to factor in the climate change cost.”
That seem like real leadership, doing the right thing rather than the easy, or popular thing.
Now, for the reverse. Here in the U.S., the Bureau of Land Management is putting a freeze on all new solar energy projects.
The agency said it has received so many proposals to build solar projects on public land, more than 130 since 2005, that it has decided to stop accepting new proposals until it can conduct environmental impact reports on the ones already filed, which could take up to two years.
Solar companies have filed proposals for more than 130 projects on public land since 2005
Certainly it makes sense to be careful about installing large solar farms, but I find it hard to believe the agency couldn’t find enough people to fast-track these studies. Shutting down all development, at such a critical time for the alternative energy space, seems amazingly short-sighted. Which, I guess, is not such a huge surprise.
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