Renewable
Energy News Bites and Tidbits
Oasis Fall 2005 Newsletter
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ATTN: Solar Supporters: Our friends at the American Solar Energy Society are sponsoring the National Solar Tour this
Saturday October 1st. To tour a solar powered home or business near you, go to:
http://WWW.NATIONALSOLARTOUR.ORG
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"Our Wind Co-Op" Brings Small Wind Turbines to the Northwest. Our Wind Co-Op is a cooperative that invests in small-scale (10-kilowatt) wind turbines for farms, ranches, and public and private facilities in the Northwest. Initially supported by grants from DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Development program, Our Wind Co-Op is creating low-risk opportunities to explore on-farm green power production, distribution, ownership, and marketing models to meet local energy needs.
http://www.ourwind.org/windcoop/ for more information.
Poop Power: Prometheus Energy of Tukwila, WA, recently scored $8 million in financing to turn cow manure and trash into usable energy. The firm is developing a new technology that transforms methane into liquid natural gas, and hopes to deploy their system at several Yakima County farms later this year. Grants from USDA and DOE have helped support their R&D
efforts. Check out http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/venture/225088_vc20.html
for the whole poop scoop.
Wind Farm Construction Generates Economic Boom: In Montana, thirty people are already at work constructing the Judith Gap Energy Center, and local businesses eagerly await the arrival of 180 to 200 more workers next month to begin erecting some 90 big wind turbines. Nearly all the work force is coming from Montana.
http://www.harvestcleanenergy.org/enews/enews_0605/enews_0605_Judith_Gap.htm
Solar Energy Payback Will Be One Year Within a Decade: According to DOE's National Renewable Energy Lab, the payback for multicrystalline PV modules is four years for systems using current technology, but only two years for technology just coming on to the market. For thin-film solar modules, the payback is three years using current technology and one year for anticipated technology. According to the NREL report, "Based on models and real data, the idea that PV cannot pay back its energy investment is simply a myth."
http://www.sparksdata.co.uk/refocus/fp_showdoc.asp?docid=45660037&accnum=1&topics=
Yale Survey Shows Overwhelming Support for Clean Energy: A new research study from Yale University found that 88% of people surveyed support expanded wind energy development. This yearly survey of 1000 adults also found that more than nine out of ten Americans are worried about dependence on foreign oil, and even greater numbers want government to develop new clean energy technologies.
http://www.yale.edu/envirocenter/environmentalpoll.htm (so, folks, don’t forget to put your vote where it counts the most!)
Can Wind Power The World? Two Stanford researchers have put out a new scientific study suggesting that the potential for wind-driven energy is actually many times greater than was previously believed, and may, in fact, be more than enough to meet the whole world's energy demands. Analyzing thousands of sites around the globe, the researchers estimated that wind power could produce 72 terawatts of energy per year—many times greater than the 1.6-1.8 terawatts the world used in 2000. North America, meanwhile, was found to have the greatest wind power potential, though its unclear whether the United States could satisfy its own needs through domestic wind power alone. Our government provides only tenuous backing at this point, and is far behind Europe in wind generation development. And of course, climate change has the potential to alter our landscape and poses ecological risks far beyond anything wind power could do. While blanket wind farms may be not be the answer, one can no longer ignore the potential for sensibly-sited farms to produce large amounts of clean
energy
http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2005/05/can_wind_power.html
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Quotable Quotes |
| Henry David Thoreau |
If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.
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| Mahatma Gandhi |
The future depends on what we do in the present.
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| Mark Twain |
Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean
it.
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| Wangara
Maathai
2004 Nobel Peace Price Winner
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A degraded environment leads to a stalemate for scarce resources and may culminate in poverty or even conflict.
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| David
Suzuki
- scientist |
We see the beauty through filters shaped by our values and beliefs. Some people think wind turbines are ugly. I think smokestacks, smog, acid rain, nuclear cooling towers, coal-fired power plants and climate change are ugly. I think windmills are beautiful. They harness the power of the wind to supply us with heat and light. They provide local jobs. They help clean our air and reduce climate change. And if one day, I look out from my cabin’s porch and see a row of windmills spinning in the distance, I won’t curse them. I will praise them. It will mean we are finally getting
somewhere.
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| U.S. President George W.
Bush
speaking to the press aboard Air Force One, 6/4/2003
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I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about why I do things.
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