wind power
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Germany has so much wind energy, they'll pay you to take it
How much will switching to renewables raise your utility bill? How about NEGATIVE ALL OF IT? In Germany, wind and solar projects have regularly been generating so much surplus energy that utilities are paying consumers to take it off the grid. High winds -- although not that high, only 15 mph -- led to negative-price wind energy for nine hours on July 24, bringing Germany's total to 31 hours of below-zero-cost energy this year.
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Can cash payments win over wind farm opponents?
This post originally appeared on Energy Self-Reliant States, a resource of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s New Rules Project. A 50-turbine wind farm in Goodhue County in southeastern Minnesota has met with stiff local resistance, a frequent tale in the wind industry. Recently, the project developer won a key court case to move forward, after […]
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Can the wind industry survive without federal tax credits?
The wind production tax credit, a key incentive for new wind energy projects, is set to expire at the end of 2012.
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Wind turbines: annoying, sure, but probably not actually unhealthy
There's no denying that wind turbines make noise. But claims that they cause actual health problems are, at best, conflated, says a new analysis.
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Biomass an important contribution, but not a magic bullet
There is a growing enthusiasm for biomass, as pundits like Arne Jungjohann look at small towns in Europe that are able to get 100% of their energy by burning wood and other biomass. But when these cases are presented out of context, I’m afraid some may draw unwarrantedly optimistic conclusions. Biomass power is not, in itself, […]
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Overcoming the roadblocks to democratizing the electricity system – part 5 of 5
A serialized version of ILSR‘s new report, Democratizing the Electricity System, Part 4 of 5. Click for Part 1 or Part 2 or Part 3 or Part 4. Overcoming the Roadblocks to Democratizing the Electricity System The electricity grid system has become host to a distributed generation phenomenon that has developed in a largely hostile […]
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Keeping Up with the Solar (and Wind) Joneses
Earlier this year, my husband and I put up solar panels at our home – the first solar project in our historic West Virginia town. Well, just last week, inspired by our project, our neighbor installed a solar system three times bigger than ours. He expects it will generate the vast majority of the electricity […]
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Why we should democratize the electricity system – part 4
A serialized version of ILSR‘s new report, Democratizing the Electricity System, Part 4 of 5. Click for Part 1 or Part 2 or Part 3. Roadblocks to Distributed, Local Renewable Energy Despite technology’s march toward more efficient and distributed energy production, there’s a substantial tension between the decentralized opportunity and the institutional and policy inertia […]
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The Political and Technical Advantages of Distributed Renewable Power
A serialized version of ILSR‘s new report, Democratizing the Electricity System, Part 3 of 5. Click for Part 1 or Part 2. The Political and Technical Advantages of Distributed Generation While technology has helped change the economics of electricity production (in favor of renewables and distributed generation), this new dynamic can as easily be controlled […]