wind power

Read and be dazzled by the techno-futurism

David asked contributors for end-of-year lists. Since I normally focus on conservative assumptions, I thought I'd use it as an excuse to look at future breakthroughs and cost improvements.

I was going to weasel by calling these "possibilities," but instead I decided to use the time-tested technique of public psychics: I'll call them predictions, crow over any that come true, and pretend the rest never happened.

1. Power storage that will make electric cars cheaper than gasoline cars.

Ultracapacitors, various lithium systems, lead carbon foam (PDF), and aluminum are among the candidates. The first storage device with a price per kWh capacity of $200 or less, mass-to-power ratio as good or better than LiOn, and ability to retain 75% or more of capacity after 1,000 cycles in real world driving temperatures and conditions wins.

Are the wind credit cards deceptive?

A kerfuffle has broken out in the green blogosphere. The state of play thus far:

• Steve Johnson noticed the new "Wind Power Card" from Renewable Choice Energy, available now at a Whole Foods near you. He is not a big fan:

  When you buy a card, you don't get any wind-generated electricity delivered to your home however. In fact, all you get is a card that doubles as a refrigerator magnet. Actually, you don't even get any credits, it's just a word they use to give you a sense of getting something from your money. The money you spend goes towards helping Renewable Choice Energy buy and sell electricity.
  
  The cards are not even an investment, because you won't get any material value in return. It's all going to help another company get rich. Most companies seek investors to secure capital. But in this case, RCE is asking people for free money under the context of doing your part to help the environment.

• The mighty BoingBoing (1.7 million unique visitors a day) picked it up and added some RCE bashing.
• Over at Sustainablog, Jeff responded with some umbrage, defending RCE.
• The mighty BoingBoing responded in kind, and several readers chimed in. Consensus: wind credits may be OK, but the cards are deceptive.
• Shea Gunther, founder of RCE, pointed to a post about how wind credits work, and another with pictures of how the cards are presented in Whole Foods.
• CitizenGreen has thoughts; GroovyGreen weighs in; so does Ecospree; Jeff again; Treehugger too.

What to make of all this?

Could a wind-energy art exhibit shape public opinion?

As an artist, Mark Beesley is drawn to subjects that others might find repellant. Beesley lives only a few miles from the Sizewell nuclear power station in Britain, and has occasionally made the plant the subject of his work. Despite his opposition to nuclear power, Beesley admits to a fascination with the plant’s design. “When […]

Wind farm follies

So, it seems they're going to build the nation's largest wind farm off the coast of Padre Island in Texas. Environmentalists are up in arms about ... wait for it ... the birds. Oy.

This bit from Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson is amusing:

"Those who are concerned about view sheds shouldn't have a problem," he said. "There's nobody there to look at it."

Nice bank shot!

Speaking of view sheds and wind farms, I confess I haven't been following the latest drama over the much-discussed Cape Wind project all that closely, cause it makes me want to pull my hair out.

First Sen. Don Young (R-Alaska) offered an amendment to kill it. I think that one died. Then Young offered another amendment giving Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney, a longtime project opponent, the power to kill it. In conference committee, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) whittled the amendment down so it only applied to wind projects in Nantucket Sound and then attached it to a Coast Guard funding bill.

The imperative to fight climate change cannot trump all other concerns

Unlike, apparently, 150 other environmentalists, I don't know enough about the proposed Cape Cod wind farm to venture an opinion on it.

Bill McKibben says "when [other environmental] efforts come into conflict with the imperative need to act urgently on global warming, they have to take second place." It's a common sentiment these days, but I'll be honest that it makes me a bit nervous.

My inclination, of course, is to support wind farms. But they are industrial development, and as such deserve reasonable regulation, smart siting decisions, and community involvement.

I like to think I "get" global warming, but I don't necessarily accept that it's the One and True Problem, the overwhelming existential threat before which all other considerations must go overboard -- any more than I believe the same of terrorism.

The clean coal and nuclear power lobbies would love to use global warming as a trump card. GE would be all over it. So would the ANWR-hungry Republican Congress.

But even in light of global warming, we still owe ourselves honest debate about other issues. Biodiversity matters. Wilderness matters. Human culture, democracy and rule of law matter. The economy matters. If you go far enough down the matters scale, eventually you find the pastoral ocean views of American aristocracy on Nantucket, and hell, even they matter a little bit.

Giving any issue the status of get-out-of-jail-free card is an invitation to abuse. Not abuse by Bill McKibben -- a veritable secular saint -- but by hangers-on. Everybody with a project to fund, political favor to call in, tax break to push, or axe to grind.

Of course, this discussion is a bit moot in light of the fact that global warming receives nothing near the attention it deserves in most contexts. I just don't want to end up saying, "You're with us or you're with the global warmists," to batter down all local or countervailing concerns. That kind of Manicheanism is for the other side.

RFK Jr. and other prominent enviros face off over Cape Cod wind farm

A long-simmering disagreement within the environmental community over a plan to build a massive wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod, Mass., is now boiling over into a highly public quarrel. The future of Nantucket Sound? Photo: NREL. The four-year-old battle started heating up last summer when Greenpeace USA staged a demonstration against well-known […]

Climate change is pushing this easygoing enviro over the edge

The one and only time I ever saw my mother become aggressive in public went like this. We were out as a family for a weekend leaf-peeping drive, an impulse apparently shared by most of the rest of New England, because the traffic along New Hampshire’s Kancamagus Highway was endless 90-degree gridlock. Every once in […]

Over 150 activists send letter asking Kennedy to reconsider position

Cape Wind Associates' plan to build a big wind-power farm off the coast of Cape Cod has been dividing enviros for years, but the disagreement got a lot more heated last month when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ran a high-profile op-ed railing against the project in The New York Times.

An excerpt:

These turbines are less than six miles from shore and would be seen from Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. Hundreds of flashing lights to warn airplanes away from the turbines will steal the stars and nighttime views. The noise of the turbines will be audible onshore. A transformer substation rising 100 feet above the sound would house giant helicopter pads and 40,000 gallons of potentially hazardous oil. According to the Massachusetts Historical Commission, the project will damage the views from 16 historic sites and lighthouses on the cape and nearby islands. The Humane Society estimates the whirling turbines could every year kill thousands of migrating songbirds and sea ducks.

That didn't sit so well with many enviros who see climate change as the big environmental issue and therefore think renewable-energy projects should be welcomed in all our backyards. More than 150 green leaders and activists this week sent a letter to Kennedy asking him to reconsider. Word is Kennedy said he'll meet with them to discuss. We'll keep you posted.

Meantime, here's the letter:

According to Wired.

1. Your property value will decrease.
2. They're ugly.
3. You'll hear noises similar to those Nazi troops used to torture Jews with during the holocaust.
4. They'll cause strokes.
5. Women will menstruate five times a month.

At least some people think so, according to a Wired article about the battle against wind farms in upstate New York.