Wind // Current TV

China's Potent Wind Potential on The Rise

China has doubled its installed wind power capacity every year for the past five, and... more

FishaHouse777
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Catch The Wind

There is just something really special about this old Donovan song. By the way, does... more

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Cumulus Clouds

I was inside and heard some thunder in the distance. I went outside and it was clear... more

Rickharmon25
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Windpower Could Provide 40 Times Earth's Power Needs

A team at Harvard decided to reinvestigate the potential for windpower around the... more

kevcheetham
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Green Wind Solar

Alernative energies go mobile!! To view more from the ladies please visit,... more

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Oogst -- Living In A Self-Sustaining Habitrail Of Happiness

Hamsters probably have no clue just how lucky they are. As humans wrestle with the... more

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A Spectacularly Sustainable Zero Carbon, Zero Waste Desert City

Creating "living zones" smack dab in the middle of vast expanses of sand is... more

sfinfgeld2
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This is green leadership. This is green vision

This is the path to a green future.

1Eco_Media
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North Carolina Senate Bans Mountaintop Wind Turbines : TreeHugger

When news first broke that North Carolina's ban wind turbines from being... more

TheRealEdwin
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Prairie grouse could hamper wind energy growth | Green Energy News

A little prairie grouse could give the wind energy industry big fits. Should the... more

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Heat Wave Demonstrates Limitations to Wind Power

The Pacific Northwest just finished four days of triple digit temperatures, which put... more

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Severe storm hits Chicago

A severe storm rolls through Chicago on the evening of Thursday, July 23, 2009. Heavy... more

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Celtic Christianity Today Homily “Repent or the Time is Near” Part 1 by Rev. Dr. George Cairns

Mark 16:15 John 1-5 Ephesians 1: 3-4 & 1: 9-10 (Valparaiso, Indiana) - Rev. Dr.... more

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Denver's Secret

Why so many green jobs are sprouting in Colorado. Talk from Washington suggests... more

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Wind could power the entire world

"Wind power may be the key to a clean energy revolution: a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science finds that wind power could provide for the entire world’s current and future energy needs.

To estimate the earth’s capacity for wind power, the researchers first sectioned the globe into areas of approximately 3,300 square kilometers (1,274 square miles) and surveyed local wind speeds every six hours. They imagined 2.5 megawatt turbines crisscrossing the terrestrial globe, excluding “areas classified as forested, areas occupied by permanent snow or ice, areas covered by water, and areas identified as either developed or urban,” according to the paper. They also included the possibility of 3.6 megawatt offshore wind turbines, but restricted them to 50 nautical miles off the coast and to oceans depths less than 200 meters.

Using this criteria the researchers found that wind energy could not only supply all of the world’s energy requirements, but it could provide over forty times the world’s current electrical consumption and over five times the global use of total energy needs.

Turning to the world’s two largest carbon emitters, China and the United States, the researchers found that wind power has the potential to easily supply both nations.

“Large-scale development of wind power in China could allow for close to an 18-fold increase in electricity supply relative to consumption reported for 2005,” the researchers write. “The bulk of this wind power, 89%, could be derived from onshore installations. The potential for wind power in the U.S. is even greater, 23 times larger than current electricity consumption, the bulk of which, 84%, could be supplied onshore.”

Expanding their view to the top ten carbon emitters, the researchers found that Russia, Canada, and the United States (in this order) had the greatest capacity for wind power. However, they note that much of the area available for wind power in Russia and Canada is far from any cities, making their construction costly. In addition, the authors note that the public may oppose wind turbines in particular areas, especially remote, ecologically sensitive regions. Still, they conclude that “despite these limitations, it is clear that wind power could make a significant contribution to the demand for electricity” in most high carbon emitting countries.""Wind power may be the key to a clean energy revolution: a new study in the... more

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Can Wind Power Get Up to Speed?

Pop quiz: what source of power doesn't come out of the ground, doesn't burn and isn't radioactive? Hint: it contributed the most new electricity generation to the U.S. grid in 2008.
The answer is wind power, the technology that has become synonymous with going green. Companies that started out small, like Denmark's Vestas and India's Suzlon Energy, have become multinational giants selling steel and fiberglass wind turbines; even blue chippers like General Electric have identified wind power as a major revenue source for the future, while the construction and installation of wind turbines will employ workers here in the U.S. Investing in wind power, said President Barack Obama at a turbine factory in Iowa on Earth Day, "is a win-win. It's good for the environment; it's great for the economy."
But for all the green talk and growth in wind power — it accounted for 42% of all new electricity generation added to the U.S. grid last year — wind still makes up less than 3% of America's total electricity generation. Even at current rates of growth, that figure is unlikely to change soon. The question is, Will wind ever produce enough power to satisfy America's energy needs?

A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) says yes. A team led by Michael McElroy at Harvard University assessed the global capacity for wind power — the total amount of sheer energy that's being carried on the breeze — and found that current technology could harness enough power to supply more than 40 times the planet's present-day levels of electricity consumption. For the U.S., there's enough wind concentrated in the Midwest prairie states to supply as much as 16 times the current American demand for electricity. The energy is there, on the breeze — it just needs to be tapped.
Wind-power estimates have been made before, but the PNAS team drilled them down to greater detail. Using a simulation of global wind fields from NASA's Goddard Earth Observing System Data Assimilation System — a network of complex computer systems used to simulate and predict meteorology — McElroy and his colleagues could map the distribution of wind resources around the globe, then calculate how much electricity could be produced by tapping those breezes with current turbines, which can generate about 2.5 megawatts on land, and larger turbines that can generate 3.6 megawatts offshore. (Offshore winds tend to be stronger and more constant than land breezes, hence they generate more power.)

The results show that there's more than enough wind to go around, and not just in breezy, big countries like the U.S. Even land-limited Japan can produce more than three times its current electricity consumption with wind power, provided it taps offshore wind. The problem isn't supply but distribution: in the U.S. and elsewhere, some of the richest wind resources tend to be far from the densely populated coastal areas that need the most electricity. Another problem is intermittency — even in Chicago, there are days when the wind doesn't below. But both those hurdles can be sidestepped by building a more modern and supercharged electrical grid, one capable of funneling wind-generated electricity from the middle of the country to the coasts. A dense and more connected network can also compensate for intermittency, with wind turbines in one part of the country backing up those in another.Pop quiz: what source of power doesn't come out of the ground, doesn't burn... more

singrrr
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Paragliding at Poo Poo Point

Issaquah, Washington. Pick your hike -- 2.5 miles or 4 miles -- but either way you... more

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Cedar Tree Institute Spirit of Place: Kayaking Lake Superior Shore; Environmental, Spiritual Retreat

12th Anniversary Retreat Spirit of Place Encounters of Spirituality and the... more

Yoopernewsman
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Wind Turbines Fear For Life: Scientists Say Wind Speeds Slowing Down

In the first study of its kind, two reserachers from the midwest are reporting that they are noticing a slowing of wind speeds in the US, particularly along and east of the Mississippi River, reports the Associated Press. With all of the hype around renewable energy, this isn't good news, especially since the culprit may be that nasty climate change again.

Eugene Takle (Iowa State) and Sara Pryor (Indiana University), the two co-authors are reporting a 10% drop in wind speeds along the east coast over a decade, which if you think about it is quite a bit since average wind speeds are typically 10-12 mph. In addition, the midwest is noticing an increase in low or no wind days. The states particularly affected are "Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Kansas, Virginia, Louisiana, Georgia, northern Maine and western Montana."

Why Are Wind Speeds Slowing?

While it's still way too early to know if this is a long-term, permanent change, in theory it makes sense. Since the Earth's poles warm faster than the equator, especially now thanks global warming, it means the differences in temp between the two locales would decrease. A more uniform temp across the globe means less air pressure (the stronger the barometric pressure, the stronger winds that are produced). "Lower pressure means less winds."

On the other hand, there are several reasons why research stations may falsely report slower winds, for example, as trees grow they may suddenly block monitoring stations causing false reads on wind speeds. Also, there is still much that scientists don't understand about wind and weather patterns. While the monitoring stations may be reporting slower wind speeds, the researchers admit that computer simulation programs are not noting this. Although, scientists in Australia and Europe are also noticing similar speed reductions, which gives more credibility to the US study.

Whether this will have any effect on power production is also up in the "air." There are NASA scientists saying it shouldn't make much of a difference, while there are researchers saying a 10% or greater reduction would have a huge impact on the ability to produce energy. For now it seems there are believers on both sides of the aisle and it will just take more data and more research to determine whether what we are seeing is real. Until that time, wind turbines can just pray for good wind. The full report will come out in the August issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Geophysical Research. :Associated Press

Note: Computer simulations and models of the future are only as good as the data supplied. I noted this a while back but it wasn't what anyone wanted to hear. If the people building the models are unable to foresee all of the factors involved in events then they can't predict them.

The fact that excessive CO2 in the environment is bad is a given as are the facts that the oceans are absorbing CO2 and this is changing their composition, making them more acidic which is killing coral reefs. It is a fact that we are burning O2 out of the atmosphere faster than the biosphere can replace it.

The actual outcome of the combination of all of these factors is impossible to predict with 100% accuracy. To think there will be no effect is ridiculous but to predict the mildness or severity of such effects is also not possible. The fact that there will be some effect is pretty much unquestionable and we can only hope we have overestimated rather than underestimated them....In the first study of its kind, two reserachers from the midwest are reporting that... more

Mike_Johnston
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"Weird wind event" lifts golf cart, traps golfers

Weird wind funnel goes after golfers, flips over cart. (Not this cart in... more

vistapoint
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