The stories of Texas’ wind farms are commonly told in terms of acres and megawatts. Artists Laura Zak and Kim Cypert, however, want to dig deeper into the cultural and social impacts of the state’s booming wind industry. Zak and Cypert are working on a performance art show incorporating insights from the digital wind energy oral history collection at Texas Tech University’s Special Collection Library, in Lubbock. The collection, which includes interviews with farmers, landowners, wind developers, municipal leaders and environmentalists, documents the experiences of those affected by wind energy development in Texas.

The technical standard for the first global consumer label for companies to buy wind power and other clean renewable energy has been launched today. The program is backed by companies including WWF, Vestas Wind Systems, the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), the LEGO Group, Bloomberg and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Effective from today, the WindMade standard allows interested entities to apply for use of the label to communicate the share of wind power and other renewable sources in their overall power consumption demand.

And the wind turbines chop up birds. A new study from M.I.T. indicates that vast wind farms to generate electricity may raise local temperatures as much as 1degree Celsius (1.8 degrees F) on land, but have the opposite effect over water. That’s significant considering the IPCC was all exercised about a 0.6 degree Celsius temperature rise over the entire 20th Century.

Currently only about 2% of electricity in the U.S. is generated by wind power, but the Department of Energy estimates that as much as 20% of electricity could be generated by wind by 2030. (That estimate may be just wishful thinking.) To generate 20% of our electricity by wind power would require installation of millions of turbines across the U.S.

Conventional wisdom suggests that because we're approaching the theoretical limit on individual wind turbine efficiency, wind energy is now a mature technology. But California Institute of Technology researchers revisited some of the fundamental assumptions that guided the wind industry for the past 30 years, and now believe that a new approach to wind farm design—one that places wind turbines close together instead of far apart—may provide significant efficiency gains.

This challenges the school of thought that the only remaining advances to come are in developing larger turbines, putting them offshore, and lobbying for government policies favorable to the further penetration of wind power in energy markets.

from: Carrington College

Spain saw wind power become its main source of electricity generation last month, underscoring the country's progress in becoming one of Europe's greenest nations.

If the Interisland Wind Project brought 400 megawatts of wind power from Lanai and Molokai to Oahu as planned, this would bring the island's total wind power to 500 megawatts, meeting increasing energy needs


A new study has found that an additional 400 megawatts of wind power, coupled with existing wind farms and solar energy, could provide 25 percent of Oahu's projected electricity demand. The study, which is the Oahu Wind Integration Study, was conducted by the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the Hawaiian Electric Company and General Electric Company. The study found that the energy needs of Oahu are increasing. Currently, low sulfur fuel oil (LSFO) and coal are burned annually to meet energy needs on the island.
But if the Interisland Wind Project brought 400 megawatts of wind power from Lanai and Molokai to Oahu as planned, this would bring the island's total wind power to 500 megawatts. This, along with 100 megawatts of solar power found on Oahu, could eliminate the need to burn 2.8 million barrels of LSFO and 132,000 tons of coal annually.
"The findings of this study show it is feasible to integrate large-scale wind and solar projects on Oahu but also have value beyond Hawaii," said Dr. Rick Rocheleau, Director of the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute. "Both large mainland utilities and relatively small and/or isolated grids that wish to integrate significant amounts of renewable energy while maintaining reliability for their customers can learn from this study." The study also provided recommendations that should be combined with the additional wind power, which include increasing power reserves in order to help manage wind variability, providing cutting edge wind power forecasting, increasing ramp rates of Hawaiian Electric's thermal generating units, reducing minimum stable operating power of baseload generating units, providing severe weather monitoring and evaluating other resources that can contribute reserve. "To reach our renewable energy goals, we need to use all the resources available to us," said Robbie Alm, Hawaiian Electric executive vice president. "For Oahu, this includes the utility-scale solar, roof-top solar, waste-to-energy and on-island wind that we are pursuing. But on-island resources are not enough to meet Oahu's power needs." Alm added that the study shows the benefits of alternative energy technology, but presents financial and environmental challenges that must be overcome before it is implemented. However, he sees the study as being an "essential first step for the Interisland Wind Project."

http://www.dailytech.com/Wind+Power+from+Hawaiian+Islands+Could+Meet+Oahus+Increasing+Energy+Needs/article21163.htm