The particular environmental requirements necessary to produce substantial outputs of energy are difficult to come by outside of tourist-popular coastal areas. While wind turbines are cleaner and make much better neighbors than coal and nuclear power plants, that does not mean that sight-seeing tourist attractions want 350 ft wind turbines popping up along misty mountain ridges where locals make their income from beautiful sunsets and the sights of colorful fall leaves and bursting spring buds. That’s why locations like Pasquotank County and Perquimans County in North Carolina are becoming prime real estate for wind energy investors like Atlantic Wind LLC. These rural locations are close enough to the coastal winds to produce 2 megawatts of electricity per tower, yet still rural and undeveloped enough to ask crops and grazing cattle to be neighborly to the huge towers instead of beach-going tourists or commuters in major cities.

Atlantic Wind LLC will pay farmers and other landowners $6,000 each year per turbine erected on their property, and they can still farm around the concrete bases of the turbines. There isn’t a crop that can match that return per acre, and in this case, they can still produce their crops in addition to their wind-generated income. The huge project planned for these rural/coastal areas could potentially produce 300 megawatts of clean, renewable electricity, increase landowner income, and power 50,000-60,000 homes.

According to the American Wind Energy Association, the United States produces about 2 percent of our total energy with 850 utility-scale wind farms much like the one proposed for NC. The turbines in the utility-scale wind farms produce enough electricity to power 10 million American homes, and Atlantic Wind LLC intends to contribute to that number in the near future.

Virginia has approved a 19 windmill farm for the beautiful mountains of Highland County, but construction has not yet begun. To entice the wind farmers to their areas, counties and states offer tax breaks, subsidies, and other financial “carrots” to bring attention to the wind potential of their areas. Atlantic Wind LLC will recoup one third of its $600 million dollar investment through the federal government. The company has already had its local tax bill reduced on a permanent basis from $25,000 per windmill down to $5,000 per turbine. The incentives turn out to be good for everyone though, and even with a 75% local tax reduction, Atlantic Wind will still be the county’s largest taxpayer by 300%. That’s 3x more tax revenue for the county, a boost in income for the landowners, and a reliable source of clean energy for the state.

With dollar signs in their eyes and clean energy in their hearts other states are lining up to invite the wind developers to check out their locations.

There is enormous potential in renewable energy that can meet our current and future needs. Here are a few facts worth knowing about wind power’s renewable energy:

• A single wind turbine can power over 300 homes if it is well designed. To start a turbine, the winds only need to reach fourteen miles per hour, so places with light wind such as the UK are able to use it with ease.
• Wind power was used as far back as 5000 BCE for ships, wind mills, and power pumps.
• Contrary to popular thought, wind power is not harmful to birds. A study by NASA has shown that windmills have no significant impact on birds.
• In 2008, enough wind power was generated in the U.S. to power the entire state of Colorado

While these facts are impressive, even more information is being discovered about wind power all the time. It seems only fitting that Google, a company that is based on information and technology, can start funding a project that will lead to more wind power findings. In the Atlantic Ocean, Google is investing $5 billion on a 350 mile stretch of land from New Jersey to Virginia to create a large scale wind farm. The strong winds that blow over the sea are ideal for a wind farm because of all the energy they can produce. It will be a pioneer effort to become the first U.S. offshore wind farm in full operation. Google is hoping to attract other companies to the project by investing a substantial 37.5 percent of the initial funds.

Google representatives are as excited about the project as the “green geeks.” The Director of Green Business Operations and Strategy at Google, Rick Needham, describes the project as a “superhighway” of energy. He stated that not being afraid to take risks has gotten the company to where it is today and that they hope that this will be a good example to other companies on what can be possible. The project is called the Atlantic Wind Connection. Once completed, the project will bring wind energy to an estimated 2 million homes.

Last year, Google invested in 20 years of wind energy and created a branch in the company called Google Energy. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Google is taking over everyone’s power bills. Rather, it means that the company is actively seeking alternative, greener, sources of energy to power its infrastructure in the future. Any excess energy the company might generate it plans to sell to back to the grid, so that everything from our home computers to our garage doors can be powered by clean energy.

The technology giant not only wants to be at the front line of efforts to go green, but also believes that this will be a good business practice for others to imitate. The company is liaised with Good Energies, a European and American investment company, as well as Marubeni, out of Japan.

We can hope that more efforts such as these can help bring the nation to energy independence and spark new hope for the people to know that they will have a safe place to work and live in the future.

The £50 billion government investment would, according to Patt, convince private companies that the supergrid idea is both “feasible” and “attractive”, the Guardian reports.

“In the long term, such a plan, combined with strings of windfarms along the north Africa coast, could “supply Europe with all the energy it needs”.

He said technological advances combined with falling costs have made it realistic to consider north Africa as Europe’s main source of imported energy.

“The sun is very strong there and it’s very reliable. There is starting to be a growing number of cost estimates of both wind and concentrated solar power for North Africa….that start to compare favourably with alternative technologies. The cost of moving [electricity] long distances has really come down.”

According to Patt only a small fraction of the Saharan desert would be needed to produce enough energy for the whole of Europe.

Arnulf Jaeger-Walden of the European commission’s Institute for Energy have said that the solar energy from the Saharan desert would be cheap and “below what the average consumer is paying:”

“The biggest PV system at the moment is installed in Leipzig and the price of the installation is €3.25 per watt. If we could realise that in the Mediterranean, for example in southern Italy, this would correspond to electricity prices in the range of 15 cents per kWh, something below what the average consumer is paying.”

So what are we waiting for!?

Photo credit: jesse.millan

Sweden might be the host for Europe’s largest wind farm if the Swedish government approves the proposed plans. The wind farm will be located in Markbygden near Piteå in northern Sweden and will have a total of 1,101 wind turbines.

“This would be Europe’s, if not the world’s, biggest wind farm,” Caj Noren, a spokesman for the board, told AFP. Construction could begin in two-and-a-half years and would be completed after about a decade, Noren said.

Once constructed the wind farm will produce between 8 to 12 terawatt hours per year and would alone meet Sweden’s national wind power target to reach 10 terawatt hours by 2015. The wind farm is expected to cost about 55 billion Swedish Kronor (around $6.9 billion or €4.5 billion) to construct.

The Swedish right-wing government recently announced that they will reverse a nearly 30-year-old ban on building nuclear power plants. Its madness when we can get cheap, clean renewable energy and at the same time create thousands of new jobs from wind farms like this one.

Photo credit: Blyzz

New research from the Helsinki University of Technology’s Advanced Energy Systems in Espoo, Finland, shows that with the help from global cooperation and investment renewable energy will “exceed all previous estimates.”

According to the new findings renewable energy technologies like wind and photovoltaics could supply 40% of the world’s electricity by 2050. But this could only become a reality if the renewable technology is backed up by adequate financial and political support. If not, the renewable share is likely to hover somewhere below 15 percent.

“Our findings demonstrate that with global political support and financial investment, previous notions that the potential for renewables was in some way limited to a negligible fraction of world demand were wrong,” Peter Lund from the Helsinki University of Technology’s Advanced Energy Systems said. “If we prioritize and recognize the value of renewable energy technologies, their potential to supply us with the energy we need is tremendous.”

Previous projections have put the renewable share at only 12% by 2030.

Also read: 10% of U.S. Energy Now Comes From Renewable Energy Sources

Photo credit: phault

Sölvesborg, a small village near the coast located in southern Sweden, was first in the world with sea-based wind power. And now it might become the place for Sweden’s and northern Europe’s largest offshore wind farm.

The renewable energy companies Vingkraft AB and Eolus Vind AB wants to construct 500 wind turbines in the sea outside of Sölvesborg by 2014-2019. Once completed the wind farm will supply 5-7 TWh of electricity every year. That is equal to the amount of electricity the now decommissioned Swedish nuclear plant Barsebäck generated every year.

Although the proposed wind farm have a long way to go and many different instances to pass, such as the military, before getting approved the local politicians and people in the region are excited. The politicians believe the wind farm will create thousands of new jobs in the region and even act as a way to attract more tourists.

The wind farm is expected to cost 50 billion Swedish kronor, equal to around €4.5 billion.

Five French wind farm projects, totalling 77MW capacity came online in February 2008. Project France phase-2 was a €115 million project constructing a total of 42 turbines. This challenge was undertaken as a joint venture by EOLE-RES S.A, a French wind park developer, and Renewable Energy Systems of the UK.

Mott MacDonald Ltd, a well renowned Global engineering consultancy, was appointed as Lenders and Owners Engineer for the project, which spanned three regions of France. In charge of due diligence as well as Owners’ engineer work for the project, Mott MacDonald was also present throughout the construction phase. Ron Donnelly of Mott MacDonald explained the increase in wind farm developments recently was “due to high oil prices there is more motivation for people to try to meet the low carbon agenda…investments in wind farms are becoming much more popular.”

The project consisted of five sites. In Houndelaincourt and Bonnet Sud, both situated in Lorraine, a total of 18 Vestas 2MW turbines were erected by October 2007. In the same month, 9 more turbines were complete, this time in Murat, Midi-Pyrénées, where Siemens 1.3MW were used instead of the Vestas turbines.

The final sites were situated in Montbéliard and Lomont, part of Franche-Comté, which saw another 15 Vestas 2MW erected. These farms were the last stages of the project and the final take over certificate was issued by 14 February 2008, allowing the turbines to come online. Nigel Deane, from Mott MacDonald, carried out construction inspections for the project. He said: “As the Owners’ engineer for these wind farms it was a challenging job, involving a large amount of site work. However, to be involved in such a highly technical project was thoroughly enjoyable and a valuable experience.”

It seems that as for every day that passes more and more jobs in USA gets outsourced and shipped overseas to countries with cheaper labour. That’s why it must be great news for the people of Colorado in USA that Vestas, the world’s leading supplier of wind energy, has announced that they will “outsource” 1350 new green tech jobs to Colorado.

Besides one factory already being built in Colorado at a total cost of $200 the Danish company Vestas will invest $120 million in a new blade factory and a nacelle assembly factory in Brighton. Thanks to these investments a total of 2450 people will be on Vestas payroll in Colorado.

“On behalf of the people of Colorado, I am grateful that Vestas has chosen to once again invest in our state,” says Bill Ritter, Governor of the State of Colorado. “This is a tremendous boon for all of Colorado, not just Brighton. By bringing more than 1,350 additional jobs here, Vestas is cementing its standing as one of Colorado’s pioneering partners in the New Energy Economy. I look forward to continuing the relationship for years to come. My administration has worked closely with Vestas to make the Brighton project a reality. This only adds momentum to our efforts to diversify our economy and grow these modern-energy industries of the future.”

The green tech jobs currently being created in Colorado mainly come from the state’s “growing political and economic commitment to renewables”, as the Washington Post reports:

Colorado’s growing political and economic commitment to renewables is causing fear in the oil and gas industry, which is fighting to keep its tax breaks and its influence over state rulemaking.

“We’re not feeling very cherished,” said Collins, whose oil and gas association represents more than 30 companies. The group objects to an initiative on the ballot in November; it would eliminate the industry’s 87.5 percent property tax exemption, estimated to cost the state treasury $230 million to $320 million a year.

If the ballot rule passes, the tax money will be channeled to renewable fuels, wildlife conservation and education. The industry also objects to proposed rules that would require greater public health and environmental protection in areas where drilling takes place.

An 87.5 percent property tax exemption? Yes, you read right. No wonder big oil likes status quo and does everything it can to halt any kind of transformation to a more sustainable energy market.

Via Solve Climate

Germany still has more wind turbines than USA and is able to generate 22,000 – 23,000 megawatts of power compared to USA’s capacity of about 18,000 megawatts.

But Randall Swisher, the executive director of the American Wind Energy Association, said that “the difference is that because the winds are so much stronger here in the U.S. we are actually providing more wind-generated electricity than Germany.” He also said that the US “wind energy capacity is growing faster than anyplace else.”

This is great news but USA is still far behind everyone else in terms of green renewable energy, especially wind energy.

For example in Germany wind power accounts for 7% of their total energy. And the even smaller country Denmark gets 20% of its energy from wind power. USA is awfully behind with only 1.2%.

“We need to back away from fossil fuel and embrace renewable energy. The survival of the world depends on it,” said Randall Swisher.

USA has now become the leading country in wind energy production, another example that Al Gore’s major renewable energy challenge for USA is possible.

Both presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain have been positive about Al Gore’s challenge.

Barack Obama said that he “strongly agree with Vice President Gore that we cannot drill our way to energy independence, but must fast-track investments in renewable sources of energy like solar power, wind power and advanced biofuels.”

John McCain said that “if the Vice President says it’s doable, I believe it’s doable.”

So how well are the different European countries doing? Well, that’s too early to say right now, but here is a list on the ten countries who have built the most wind plants in Europe last year:

• Spain – 3522
• Germany – 1667
• France – 888
• Italy – 603
• Portugal – 434
• UK – 427
• Sweden – 217
• Netherlands – 210
• Greece – 125
• Poland – 123

And this is the total amount of wind plants they currently have:

• Germany – 22247
• Spain – 15145
• Italy – 2726
• France – 2454
• UK – 2389
• Portugal – 2150
• Netherlands – 1746
• Greece – 877
• Sweden – 788
• Poland – 276

Please note that this last list do not show all European countries or member states. It only lists the top 10 wind plants builders in 2007.

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