Into the Wind - the AWEA Blog

Time magazine's blog has a short piece today on the economic impact from White-Nose Syndrome (WNS), the fungal disease that has been devastating colonies of bats in the Northeastern U.S.

The article correctly notes that bats have an important role in agriculture, because of the fact that they consume billions of insect pests annually, and cites an estimate of "at least" $3.7 billion per year for the value of this "service."

Quite aside from the question of economic value, the loss of any species reduces biodiversity and the health of the natural environment upon which we all depend. Because some bat species are harmed by wind turbine collisions, the wind energy industry has taken a special interest in bats in general.

Beginning in early 2008, soon ...

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Good news from California, where the state legislature Tuesday passed a bill requiring utilities to obtain 33% of the electricity they supply from renewable energy sources (wind, solar, geothermal, biomass) by 2020.

The new legislation is a further rebuke to dirty-energy backers, who lost badly in last November's election in an effort to weaken the Golden State's ...

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Not much of a cheer, is it? But, that's the word from the Pew Charitable Trusts, which reported recently that the U.S. dropped another place, to third, in clean-energy investment in 2010.

The report, "Who's Winning the Clean Energy Race," found that the U.S., with $34 billion in spending during the year on clean energy, trailed China ...

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The following post replies to a question from National Journal to its "energy experts" list.  The question was as follows:

"Is Any Energy Form Safe?
 
"In light of the BP oil spill, Japan’s nuclear crisis, and a recent spate of coal-mining accidents, the risks and dangers associated with energy production are more evident than ever.
 
"Renewable energy is safer than fossil fuels, but production is not yet at a scale where it could displace any traditional energy source. Natural gas has emerged as a safer bet for fossil fuels in light of these other disasters, but it also must address concerns about pipeline safety and hydraulic fracturing, a controversial way to extract shale gas that has been known to ...

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A wind energy advocate in Wisconsin asked us this week about a rumor circulating among anti-wind groups that the World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended a 6,000-foot setback for wind turbines from the nearest residence.

I did a little research on the Web and turned up two classes of anti-wind website: Class #1 repeats the claim, but provides no reference to back it up, while Class #2 more accurately refers to sound levels (for sounds from any and all sources) recommended in WHO documents.

After some internal discussion, we arrived at the following statement of position on the question of WHO and its sound guidelines:

Modern wind turbines make very little sound--it is possible to carry on a conversation in a normal tone of voice at the base ...

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Some time ago, in response to occasional inquiries from reporters, I wrote a blog post about rare-earth minerals and the permanent magnets that contain them.

The allegation is frequently made in newspaper articles that permanent magnets, and by extension, rare earths, are critical to the manufacture of wind turbines. Since China is the leading world producer of rare earth ores, and since it is beginning to restrict ...

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The two senior members of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Lisa Murkowski (I-AK) today took the first serious step toward crafting a clean/renewable energy standard, releasing a Clean Energy Standard White Paper and asking for public comment.

While it is still very early in the legislative process, the White Paper is nevertheless encouraging--a clean and/or renewable electricity standard could provide the certainty the wind energy industry ...

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It's kind of surreal--who would think that a nuclear emergency would lead to a new round of attacks on wind energy?

Yet that is what is happening.  Nuclear advocates, to keep their dream alive, need to claim that nuclear is the only hope, and that wind cannot produce enough electricity to do the job.  Coal advocates, meanwhile, are saying that nuclear is dead, and coal is the only hope, because wind cannot produce enough electricity to do the job.

The numbers tell a different story, and they also tell us that this is the last chance--if it's not already too late--to belittle wind power and pass the laugh test.  Here are some of them:

- In the last three years, enough new wind power was installed in the U.S. to generate as much electricity as five ...

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The American Wind Energy Association Friday criticized a report on "Firming Renewable Electric Power Generators," by ICF International for the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA), as "meaningless" because of fundamental flaws that grossly overstate the impacts of wind energy and miss its contribution to a reliable electrical grid.

"This report assumes a fictional world that bears no relation to how real power systems operate, and as a result vastly overstates the impact of variable resources like wind energy," said Denise Bode, CEO of AWEA, herself the former head of the Regional State Committee of the Southwest Power Pool and former chairman of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission that regulates the energy industry.

Added Bode, "American wind ...

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A recent trade publication article by Ken Silverstein reported that U.S. utility system operators are concerned about the variability of wind generation and how it may affect system operations.

In light of some of the misleading claims expressed in the article, it is important to remember that large amounts of wind energy are already being reliably and cost-effectively integrated with the grid in the U.S. and around the world. In 2010, the Texas grid obtained 7.8% of its electricity from wind energy, with wind energy providing more than 25% of the grid’s electricity at one point. Over 15% of the electricity produced in Iowa now comes from wind energy. Similarly, European ...

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