wind
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Google antes up $100 million (more) for advanced wind farm
Google's latest investment in wind power is much more than just the latest chapter in the company's support for renewable energy. It's part of a larger strategy that could see the search giant turn into a (very profitable) behemoth in the world of energy. According to Katie Fehrenbacher, veteran renewable energy reporter at Earth2Tech: The Shepherds […]
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Wind farm sizes suggest bigger is no better
This post originally appeared on Energy Self-Reliant States, a resource of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s New Rules Project. Have wind developers hit a financial sweet spot above which more turbines results in disproportionate land acquisition and lease costs? Are crane and construction economies of scale no greater? Are NIMBY concerns mitigated with a smaller […]
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America has way more ‘disturbed’ land for wind power than it needs, says report
Yes, renewable energy is more living-thing-friendly than fossil fuels, but given a choice, animals would probably prefer that we take our damn opposable thumbs and go back to living in caves. Wind turbines don't sully a hilltop the same way mountaintop-removal mining would, but they do have a footprint. That's why a new study published […]
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Wind turbine suffers catastrophic failure; no one is irradiated
Last month, a wind turbine on a North Dakota wind farm suffered a "catastrophic failure" when "oversight" and "human error" — features of energy infrastructure which scientists suggest are unavoidable — led to the enormous turbine falling off its mount. The most recent reports indicate that so far the only casualties are a wide swath […]
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Japan could rebuild faster with renewables, says report
In the wake of severe natural disasters, how is Japan going to get its electrical infrastructure back online? The Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability has an answer, and it's anything but business as usual. By deploying a mix of renewables and energy efficiency technology, they argue, Japan's need for electricity could be met three […]
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The China-Europe-America Smackdown
America, it could be worse. We could be Europe. I mean, we’re still mostly in the race with China – – in the past five years, they improved energy efficiency by nearly 20% and have a new five-year plan for another 20%. I say big deal – – the Empire State Building recently completed an […]
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Wind turbines kill birds, but they don’t have to — here’s how to do better [VIDEO]
Here's a stomach-churning video of a wind turbine karate-chopping a vulture. Watching it will probably change the way you look at wind turbines. (Seriously, bird-lovers be warned: It is intense.) This video, originally captured by a tourist in Greece, vividly illustrates what happens 440,000 times a year, according to the American Bird Conservancy. If that […]
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New wind now costs the same as new coal — the tiebreaker is one of them kills you
The radical environmentalists at Bloomberg have declared that the world's best new wind projects now produce electricity that costs about the same as electricity produced from new coal-fired power plants. A lot goes into these calculations, but here's the bottom line: wind costs $65 a megawatt-hour, while power from new coal-fired power plants costs about […]
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California goes balls to the wall on renewables
As of 2020, California will be getting fully one third of its energy from renewable sources. So says a bill passed yesterday by the state assembly. It's a "renewable portfolio standard" so aggro that it makes a WWE elbow drop to the throat look like a tiddlywinks match played by pink cloud-people in a straight-to-DVD […]