Wind is the world’s fastest growing alternative power source. Experts have said that wind could provide up to 12% of the earth’s electricity within two decades. These imposing gauntlets of giant toy like whirligigs situated on hilltops or standing tall off coastal shores not only attract tourists but also opponents. These stories of conflict stretch the length or our country, from small seaside towns to wide expansive western plains. People and progressive utility companies are struggling to find solutions that preserve the ecosystems but offer a sustainable future. Tune in here to witness the changing horizon for a cleaner future. Send in your stories or any related information regarding wind energy to: offthegrid@voiceyourself.com.
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Surplus of wind energy sparks utilities board fight
Dualing energy providers.
MidAmerican Energy of Des Moines, Iowa's largest wind energy provider with 1,300 megawatts of wind capacity, has asked Iowa regulators to approve more than 1,000 megawatts of wind generation to be built at yet-undisclosed locations in the state. But MidAmerican's largest rival in Iowa wind energy, NextEra Energy Resources of Jupiter, Fla., has objected in a filing with the Iowa Utilities Board. MidAmerican wanted rate-making approval for the wind generation by May 29, it said, to take advantage of a surplus of inexpensive wind turbines. But it won't happen that fast - the utilities board set a public hearing for the proposal for June 22.
By Dan Piller - The Des Moines Register , May 21, 2009
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Doyle, governors meet to talk region’s wind power
Wind power is coming of age.
Gov. Jim Doyle met with the governors of three other Midwestern states at a Chicago conference Tuesday to discuss the development of wind energy throughout the region. The meeting will feature more than 1,000 companies and representatives from 47 countries who will discuss the importance and development of wind energy both throughout America and the world, American Wind Energy Association CEO Denise Bode said.
By Rachel Vesco - The Badger Herald | Madison, WS , May 06, 2009
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First Wind scores financing for major Utah
Financial funds do heavy lifting.
Californian wind farm developer First Wind has secured $376 million to finance the first phase of a 203.5MW wind farm in Utah, involving a syndicate of nine banks. Royal Bank of Scotland was joint lead-arranger for the financing, along with Banco Espirito Santo, Banco Santander, BNP Paribas, CoBank, HSH Nordbank, KeyBank, Société Générale and Credit Suisse. Funding for such projects has slowed substantially in the wake of the credit crunch and worsening economic climate.
Environmental New Service , April 30, 2009
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Deepwater Wind’s proposal for a wind farm off the Rhode...
Innovative ocean wind power.
Deepwater Wind’s $1.5-billion proposal for a wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island could create as many as 1,200 jobs in state to design the project, assemble its components and install them, and, in the longer term, could lead to thousands more jobs manufacturing turbine parts, the company’s chief operating officer told Governor Carcieri and the state’s Economic Policy Council yesterday. Chris Wissemann said his firm’s two-phase plan to erect 106 turbines puts Rhode Island in pole position in the nascent offshore wind industry. The state could not only be the first to have a wind farm off its coast, but it could also become a manufacturing center for other wind projects planned in the Northeast and beyond.
By Alex Kuffner - The Providence Journal | Rhode Island , March 12, 2009
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Wind Power: Subsidies Are Nice, But Strong Winds Are Nicer
Breezes will never expire!
The U.S. is the most attractive country in the world for wind power—and not just because of all the recent goodies in the stimulus package and the Obama budget proposal. Year-end reports by big wind-power developers like FPL’s NextEra Energy, Spain’s Iberdrola, and Portugal’s EDP underscore how much richer the U.S. is in “wind resources”—i.e., wind—than pretty much anywhere else in the world. The biggest problem with wind power is that it doesn’t blow all the time. That limits the true capacity of wind farms to a fraction of their listed capacity and to about one-third of big, baseload power plants like nuclear reactors.
By Keith Johnson - The Wall Street Journal , March 02, 2009
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AMERICA'S WIND POWER IMPERATIVE: A CALL TO ACTION
US Windpower Potential Map.
One of the few bright spots in today's struggling economy, wind power holds the promise of sparking a new economic renaissance for America. As the second largest source of new electrical capacity in the U.S. for the past four years running, behind only natural gas, wind power provided 42% of the nation's new electric generating capacity in 2008. The wind industry also invested $17 billion in domestic wind farm construction in 2008 alone, bringing good-paying jobs to rural America and to a hard-pressed U.S. manufacturing sector. This is great news, given that the rapidly escalating climate crisis demands that we kick our addiction to fossil fuels as quickly as possible.
By Tom Weis - Windpowersolutions.com , February 26, 2009
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Smart-grid project matches wind to electric cars
Wind powering electric cars.
IBM is joining a Danish project to optimize wind turbine energy for plug-in electric vehicles, the latest sign of the growing interest among policy-makers in smart-grid technologies. The EDISON research consortium will seek to match power generation from wind turbines on the island of Bornholm, Denmark, with the power consumption of charging plug-in electric cars. The long-term goal is to boost the percentage of plug-in electric cars to 10 percent in the country while maximizing the use of wind energy in Denmark, which already gets 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources like wind. The project is partly funded by the government of Denmark.
By Martin LaMonica - CNET News , February 25, 2009
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Alaska Is a Frontier for Green Power
$5 diesel makes wind power sensible.
Beyond the fishing boats, the snug homes and the tanks of diesel fuel marking this Eskimo village on the Bering Sea, three huge wind turbines tower over the tundra. Their blades spin slowly in a breeze cold enough to freeze skin. One of the nation’s harshest landscapes, it turns out, is becoming fertile ground for green power. As interest in cleaning up power generation grows around the country, Alaska is fast becoming a testing ground for new technologies and an unlikely experiment in oil-state support for renewable energy. Alaskans once cast a wary eye on anything smacking of environmentalism, but today they are investing heavily in green power, not so much to reduce emissions as to save cash.
By Stefan Milkowski - The New York Times | Toksook Bay, AK , February 18, 2009
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U.S. Named Top Producer Of Wind Energy Last Year
Wind is center-stage in U.S.
Wind power capacity jumped 50 percent last year to over 25 gigawatts in the US alone, making the nation the world’s top producer of wind power, according to an industry survey released on Monday. The US replaced Germany as the world’s No. 1 source of wind power installations, however Germany gets a much higher percentage of its electricity from wind power, according to industry figures. New US wind energy installations totaled 8,358 MW for a total installed capacity of 25,170 MW compared to Germany with a total installed capacity of 23,902 MW.
redOrbit.com , February 03, 2009
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Catching the Wind in Antarctica
Belgium’s new Antarctic station, Princess Elisabeth
On six continents, wind energy is struggling to compete with fossil fuels. But in Antarctica, wind is carving out a big role.
Matthew Wald - The New York Times , November 4, 2008
