This is an archive of articles and news on both large and small wind turbines, wind energy & the environment, and links to topics on the history of wind energy.
I've been working with wind energy since 1976 and my professional experience in the subject runs the gamut from wind resource assessment to installing and testing small wind turbines. I continue to follow the industry and analyze its growth and increasing contribution to renewable electricity generation worldwide.
Yes, I’ve written about this subject once before, Everything You Need to Know about Wind Energy Was Written in 1957!, but I am moving the date back thirty years in the light of more research. The...[more]
Largely forgotten today, Georges Jean Marie Darrieus was one of France’s great engineers. While he is mostly known in the English-speaking world for his patent on vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWTs),...[more]
A wind-turbine-blade factory in Southwestern Ontario that Siemens Wind Power Ltd.’s former parent company called “a key part of our global supply chain” just last September is winding down...
In response to the June 24, 2017 piece, “Block Island Wind Farm May Have Killed Young Humpback Whale,” several of us, researchers at the University of Rhode Island (URI), feel it is important to...
Oh the ways of the wind. It blows where it will--or something to that effect. We were on our way to pick cherries. That’s a fairly innocuous activity. From Bakersfield we had to cross the Antelope...[more]
The Chaska, Minnesota promoter of a ducted wind turbine appears to have fallen on hard times. The fabric covering of the intake duct for their demonstration turbine is torn and in disrepair and the...[more]
York University’s International Renewable Energy Academy designated 29 June as the “wind day” on their week-long program. [more]
The 29 June was the “wind day” for York University’s International Renewable Energy Academy. As the featured speaker to start the day I donned one of my favorite wind tie.[more]
(1) North American support for wind has been consistently high. (2) The NIMBY explanation for resistance to wind development is invalid. (3) Socioeconomic impacts of wind development are strongly...
The Chinese Government is therefore set to publish at least 2 or 3 additional reductions to the onshore wind FiT level before 2023.
Right-wing media find a new renewable energy bogeyman.
Presentation by Paul Gipe for York University's International Renewable Academy on 22 June 2017. Check against delivery.
In 2014, Senate Republicans tucked into an 822-page mid-biennium budget review (HB 483) a rider that more than doubled the distance a wind turbine must be from the adjacent property of anyone who...
"Wind farms and nuclear power stations are responsible each for between 0.3 and 0.4 fatalities per gigawatt-hour (GWh) of electricity while fossil-fuelled power stations are responsible for about...
They say that a good book should always tell a story. And this is true for this book by Paul Gipe. Titled "Wind Energy for the Rest of Us" is not just about the technology, but it tells the whole...
While thumbing through German renewables magazine, Sonne Wind&Wärme, a table jumped out at me. The table confirmed that the Silent Wind Revolution that French renewables expert Bernard Chabot first...[more]
Dr. Alt is a journalist who has been promoting the vision of a renewable energy world for more than two decades. As head and presenter of important political tv magazines, he became one of the most...
I have a Casella CEL-464 professional-grade sound level meter for sale. I used the unit during the early 2000s to measure the noise emissions from small wind turbines.[more]
The onslaught of super-dooper new windmill inventions is never ending. Frankly it’s wearing out us old timers. We can’t keep up with the damn things. We try to ignore them but our friends and...[more]
It is no wonder that a modern wind turbine looks so beautiful.[more]
So, are wind and solar killing coal and nuclear? Yes, but not by themselves and not for the reasons most people think. Are wind and solar killing grid reliability? No, not where the grid’s technology...
Ogin raised more than $150 million in funding — even attracting the attention of former Vice President Al Gore, now a senior partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, one of the company’s earliest...
Four years after a federal grand jury in Raleigh, North Carolina returned a two-count indictment against James Alan Rowan for his fraudulent wind turbine investments, the fugitive was caught in...[more]
Among all those who lost money in the FloDesign-Ogin fiasco is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Compared to others the state lost a relatively modest amount of $3 million.[more]
Urban environments are challenging locations for small wind turbines. Moreover, the sector must deal with cases of small turbines poorly sited and installed by companies that are more interested in...
The work within this thesis is made in collaboration between Halmstad University and Uppsala University. A 200-kW semi-guy-wired VAWT H-rotor, owned by Uppsala University but situated in Falkenberg...
James Alan Rowan was apprehended in Saskatoon, where his parents live. A Saskatoon judge committed him to be extradited to the U.S. to face two fraud charges filed against him amid allegations he...
Recently a Dutch wind farm developer’s home was firebombed. Dutch Wind Developer Fire Bombed What other instances of violence against wind industry staff have occurred?
New Zealand’s Superannuation Fund has written down its $47.5 million (NZ) investment in ducted turbine promoter Ogin. [more]
In June 2016 the Ogin Board of Directors and management mutually agreed to separate. At that point we wrote the Fund’s NZ$47.5 million investment down to nil, and that was included in our annual...
Sometime around midnight 10-11 April the home of Bob Jans was firebombed in Assen, the Netherlands. Both Jans and his wife were home, asleep at the time.[more]
Keynote presentation to the 2017 Small Wind Conference 11 April in Minneapolis, Minnesota.[more]
When she's not climbing in Patagonia, Jessica Kilroy hangs off wind turbines
Bergey Windpower, an American manufacturer of small wind turbines for residential and commercial applications, recently announced a new product, the Excel 15 wind turbine.
"Als die Gemeindevertreter der drei Gemeinden mit diesem Konzept auf die Bürger zugingen, war das Vorhaben schnell akzeptiert“, erinnert sich Schäfer.
Investigators are looking into the possibility that the man may have taken his own life, it is understood.
Police have identified a worker who died in an accident on a wind farm site in the south of Scotland.
Another interesting concept being considered is to locate one or both reservoirs below ground (sub-surface).
A proposal by Northland Power for a project in Ontario, Canada.
Gemany is turning one of its old coal mines into a giant 'battery station' that will store hydroelectric power and provide energy to around 400,000 homes, with hopes of launching similar facilities...
As wind energy achieves a historic milestone – surpassing the total capacity of hydropower dams to become the nation’s largest renewable energy resource – many of California’s pioneer wind projects...
A poll published in the Sunday Times shows more than half of Conservative voters think the government should do more to encourage onshore wind power. 52% of those surveyed said the building of wind...
The Small Wind Conference has chosen Paul Gipe as its keynote speaker for its 2017 conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Calling Gipe “legendary” for his four decades writing about wind energy, the...[more]
Nova Scotia policy on wind farms makes them 3 times more popular than in Ontario, study says.
Presentation before the Distributed Wind Energy Association in Washington, DC February 28, 2017[more]
The book is a combination between a historical book, a textbook and a do-it-yourself book if you want to install your own wind turbine or want to invest in wind energy. It describes the different...
A stark, but somewhat expected finding is the high degree of support for wind energy in Nova Scotia compared to Ontario. Local support of their own nearby turbine development was three times higher...
With a month to go this fiscal year, Japan's installation of new wind power capacity in 2016-17 is set to come in almost double that of the previous 12 months, propelled by higher tariffs guaranteed...
The Canadian province of Ontario generated a higher percentage of its electricity with wind energy than California in 2015. [more]
Is the end near for SheerWind’s Invelox ducted wind turbine? The problems with SheerWind’s design are coming to a head as its signature clients lose faith.[more]
No, that’s not mere click bait. That’s the argument Geoff Henderson makes in a provocative paper on wind turbine size and the landscape impact of wind turbines.[more]
The Kern-Kaweah Chapter of the Sierra Club will lead a hike among the wind turbines on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) at 9:00 am on Saturday May 20, 2017 near Tehachapi, California. [more]
The current newsletter of the Poul la Cour Foundation offers kudos for the new book by Paul Gipe, Wind Energy for the Rest of Us. [more]
Last week, we got a peek at Trump’s infrastructure plan, which included infrastructure projects that he considers a priority. Three of those are wind-related projects.
The digital version of Wind Energy for the Rest of Us is now available for download. This is the version of the book for true wind geeks as it offers photographic detail not seen any other way.[more]
It seems to happen with every new technology. It wasn’t so long ago that some people were convinced a photograph could steal your soul. We may read about that now and have a little chuckle, but are...
Despite its previous association with a questionable wind turbine and its promoter, Clarkson University announced that the school in upstate New York has transferred ducted wind turbine technology...[more]
Honeywell WindTronics may be dead but that doesn’t stop others from spinning the WindTronics hype. [more]
“The province gave the company $2.7 million to open in Windsor — under one condition. The company promised there would be 200 workers in the plant by the end of this year. That is now very unlikely,”...[more]
"It is prohibited for any private actor, any renewable energy company to come into Newfoundland to build a renewable energy source or to sell or transmit it on the grid. It's essentially against the...
Fans of my work with wind energy have often joked that my books would have a larger audience if they had some sex in them--or at least a bare breast.[more]
This book analyzes Germany's path-breaking Energiewende, the country's transition from an energy system based on fossil and nuclear fuels to a sustainable energy system based on renewables. The...
Martin Frey's wonderful little guidebook to the Energiewende in Germany is now available in English. Germany - Renewable Energy Experience Baedeker Guides. Frey's book is highly recommended for...[more]
Messages sent before his White House campaign show US president-elect harassing Alex Salmond over windfarms
Levelised cost of electricity from wind farms in France stands at EUR 76 per MWh, says a joint study of Pöyry Managing Consultants and French wind industry body France Energie Eolienne published...
Patrick McCaffrey (37) from Rossinver, Co Leitrm died on Monday evening after a landslide on a mountain bog on the Sligo-Roscommon border where groundworks for turbines were being carried out.
Endurance Wind Power filed for bankruptcy sometime around early November and placed under trust with Grant Thonrton, after its bank called in its loan.
Wind Energy for the Rest of Us, Paul Gipe’s new book on wind energy is finally hitting the streets. Complimentary copies of the 560-page tome are reaching the first group of colleagues and reviewers...[more]
Energy Democracy traces the origins of the Energiewende movement in Germany from protests against the industrialization of rural communities in the 1970s to the Power Rebels of Schönau and German...
The $107,516 spires stand immobile more than two months after they were erected and more than a year after the city council approved them.
SeaTwirl has already installed a 30-kW prototype floating offshore wind turbine at Lysekil and it wants to build a full-scale machine, SeaTwirl S2, by 2020.
More correctly, the Chelsea Green warehouse has books. They arrived 9 November all 2,150 copies. [more]
US president-elect does not deny pushing interim leader Nigel Farage and key associates to fight development of windfarms in Scotland
Paul Gipe has been named to the Energy Watch Group, one of only two North Americans on the prestigious panel. He joins Stanford academic Mark Jacobson, internationally known for his work on moving to...[more]
FloDesign’s prototype ducted wind turbine on Deer Island in Boston Harbor is being removed, according the agency that operates the nearby sewage treatment plant.[more]
Ok, we did have a previous ship date. Printed copies of Wind Energy for the Rest of Us were to arrive in the warehouse at the end of October. Obviously, that didn’t happen--and for good reason. I...[more]
“Purdue is involved in trying to look at the genetics of these birds to figure out whether they are local birds that were born and hatched near the Altamont site, or whether they are birds from other...
Some 73% of the British public polled by ComRes support onshore windfarms in contrast with government decisions to block them
On this date in 1941, the first commercial-scale wind turbine was connected to the electrical grid in the United States. It was a milestone in the development of wind energy. The giant Smith-Putnam...[more]
Wind energy companies in Indiana are attempting to mitigate the deaths of bats during migration season by slowing or stopping their turbines at night.
But amid the gale-force havoc, the day also brought a critical milestone in a quiet energy revolution: For the first time ever, the army of spinning white turbines that has sprouted across the lush...
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) concludes in a new report that rooftop-mounted and building-integrated wind turbines are a failure, though readers would be hard pressed to find that...[more]
Cleanfield made a big media splash in Ontario, Canada during the mid-2000s with its claim of producing a new wind turbine suited for mounting on buildings. [more]
Makani Airborne Wind Energy Turbine (AWT) hasn't been in the news lately. They arrived in a flurry of press in 2013 as the next big thing from Google. The device is a powered kite tethered to the...[more]
There’s no better example of ignorance, hype, and hubris by people with more money at their disposal than their knowledge of energy when the government of Ontario funded Cleanfield Energy, a small...[more]
Who knew that printing a book would be so complicated? Yes, writing, designing, and editing a book are difficult. That’s expected. But picking out paper weights?[more]
Vertical axis wind turbine design to be tested soon
Though the Mariah Windspire Company is defunct, the design has been taken up by another company. Doing business as Windspire Energy, the new company backed by Wisconsin's Ark Alloy LLC has revisited...[more]
According to NEDO, about 0.18GW of wind power plants (86 plants) were newly installed in Japan in fiscal 2015. As of the end of the fiscal year, there were 2,102 wind power plants (total capacity:...
Turns out, the wind tree is actually worse than initially thought.
Former employees of the erstwhile ducted turbine manufacturer Ogin have posted comments about their jobs on a public web site.[more]
More photos of the Ogin ducted wind turbine dismantlement have been “thrown over my transom.” These close-up photos show far more detail of the disassembly and scrapping process than before.[more]
French aerodynamicist Stéphan Aubin sent in a photo of Vertical-Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) near the port of Siacca while he was vacationing in southern Italy.[more]
Photographer Bob Tregilus sent along a couple of pictures of some recycled US Windpower turbines in Nevada.[more]
Controversial developer of “urban” wind projects Urban Green Energy (UGE) is quitting the wind business. Using its in-house designed vertical-axis wind turbine, the New York City-based company...[more]
Study concludes there is no ‘detrimental effect’ on the number of holidaymakers in places with wind turbines
The highly hyped ducted wind turbines near Palm Springs have been removed. The Ogin turbines were removed sometime this summer.[more]
Critics of renewable energy have a full quiver of objections of why we shouldn’t bother developing wind and solar energy. One of my favorites is when they say, “Well renewables are nice, but they...[more]
The Library of Congress has assigned the Control Number 2016912305 for the title. The process isn’t complete until a printed copy of the book is received by the Library of Congress. We don’t expect...[more]
A campaign calling for two kilometers between a turbine and the nearest built environment for new wind farms has failed. State politicians are nonetheless looking for ways to increase acceptance.
The state's 25 largest wind farms generate $30.4 million in annual property taxes and $13.86 million in extra income each year for landowners who lease their land to wind farm developers, according...
The act against wind turbines imposes a number of restrictions on producers of wind energy (except for micro installations and offshore wind farms).
Britain, with one-fifth the population of the USA, installed 560 MW of wind generating capacity in distributed applications from 2010 through 2015. This represents more than three times the MW per...[more]
Authorities say a 31-year-old from Manly died Thursday in a construction accident at a wind turbine in central Iowa. Christopher Thompson of Manly was working inside a wind turbine under construction...
After a long delay, Denmark is poised to reintroduce a new Feed-in Tariff (FIT) program for small wind turbines. The previous program had been suspended when it reached its cap. The new program cuts...[more]
Commissioners decided that Greycliff can arrange a contract of up to 25 years at a price of $45.49 per megawatt hour. That price is less than consumers are paying NorthWestern for power from the...
Unsurprisingly, raptors were found to be the most vulnerable. The bird everyone in Germany is talking about in the context of wind turbines – the red kite – was not found in the study to an extent...
The Dutch Government has awarded a contract to build two 350 MW Borssele offshore windfarms for 87 euros per MWh (£74 per MWh), some 25 per cent cheaper than the current value of the contract for...
Later this year Georgia Power Company, a part of the Southern Company, is installing three small wind turbines as a demonstration. Is this newsworthy? Is it significant in any way?[more]
What summary data tells us is that California wind farms generated 13.7 TWh from 6,200 MW of installed capacity in 2014. This results in a fleet-wide yield of 2,200 kWh/kW/yr. This is an important...[more]
No. That title isn’t click bate. Long ago, in a land far away, I had to give a speech on the future of wind energy. That’s not noteworthy; I do it all the time. What was noteworthy, though, was that...[more]
Newly released assessments of nearly 1000 properties in the southern part of El Paso, located near a wind farm southeast of Calhan, found no decrease in property values since the wind farm’s...
It went by various incarnations, but it was founded as Windtamer by one Gerald Brock and it finally and officially is gone.[more]
The proofreader dropped the marked up manuscript in my lap the Friday evening of Memorial Day weekend—all 550 pages of Wind Energy for the Rest of Us. [more]
This is the way to do small wind right. "When Hurricane Joaquin affected the East Coast the first week of October 2015, the two wind turbines, which were selected for their ability to withstand...
In early 2016 the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) installed a large wind turbine at their headquarters in central England. The 100-meter (330-foot) tall turbine was installed at the...[more]
Work begins in Sandy, Bedfordshire on 25 January, and the 100-metre tall Enercon E-53 800kW turbine will generate around 2m units of green energy every year, equivalent to over half of the...
That this turbine was doomed to fail—and would give small wind another—and unneeded—black eye was obvious from the beginning—for anyone who had the desire to know.[more]
Sven Ruin brought to my attention the test summary report on Solid Wind's 14-meter diameter, 25 kW wind turbine. The report was issued in mid-2015.[more]
The U.S. Department of Energy is awarding $40 million to the Lake Erie Energy Development Corp. to build a six-turbine pilot wind farm in Lake Erie by the end of 2018.
Up to now, public support for wind power has been very strong in Germany. But recent changes to German law have encouraged local groups that oppose wind farms. The relegation of competence from the...
“Some electricity utility companies in Canada will tell you all you’ll ever get from wind is 10 per cent of your electrical needs,” Carl Brothers, an engineer and wind energy consultant, said. “In...
The good news is that with a smaller font size and tighter leading (the space between lines) than in my previous books, Holm has been able to substantially reduce the number of printed pages from...[more]
James Sim, 32, was working in a trench laying ducting for new cable for an offshore wind farm being built off the coast at Heysham in April 2010.
It’s no small sign of wind energy’s success that you can’t keep up with the steady stream of books in English--even when you’re into books on wind energy. It’s even more problematic is you spread...[more]
Watch the little wind turbine at Burlington Electric Department and you’ll find, as often as not, its blades are stock-still.
In 1919 the utility installed a wind turbine at Buddinge and connected it to its lines—a first worldwide, a full two decades before the Smith-Putnam machine in Vermont was connected to the grid.[more]
With tax benefits scaled down and some states reducing tariffs, there is a danger of the wind sector getting short shrift at a time of heightened focus on solar power
The German manufacturer of direct-drive turbines has built a prototype of its 4.2 megawatt unit recently announced. But the important thing is not the generator size, but the 126-meter rotor. It is...
Today marks the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945 by the 6th armored division of the US Third Army. Buchenwald is significant for several reasons. 56,000 people died in the...[more]
In short, anyone who claims that these wind turbines are spoiling the view from Kaiserstuhl is very sensitive indeed, not to mention highly selective. Perhaps because Kaiserstuhl is arguably the...
Imagine for a moment that these new studies find no statistically defensible evidence to link infrasound to human ill-health. Will those calling for a moratorium accept the results and declare wind...
On the left, we see turbine types for which permits were granted last year; on the right, those actually built in 2015. In other words, the ones on the left point into the future more than those on...
Big step in the long road to publishing my new book: Wind Energy for the Rest of Us. Today I assigned the ISBN numbers to the digital and print version. Each version of the book has its own distinct...[more]
France's National assembly defeats Senate measure to effectively ban wind turbines in France.
The proposed law on the cultural landscape in France is a Trojan Horse designed to ban wind turbines. Why do they hate windmills so much?
In the research for my new book, Wind Energy for the Rest of Us, I came across several unsung heroes of wind energy development. One of those was French engineer Louis Vadot.[more]
The recorded small wind capacity installed worldwide has reached more than 830 MW as of the end of 2014. This is a growth of 10,9 % compared with 2013, when 749 MW registered. In 2012, 678 MW were...
We took a chance when we bought our Tesla, and it’s paying off because our power comes from the wind. Our residential sized turbine captures wind from Lake Superior in Upper Michigan and fuels our...
The Madison County (Indiana) Historical Society was able to locate the photo that I'd seen on display in mid 2015 of Charles E Miller's 1926 wind turbine in Anderson, Indiana.[more]
In the last few years of eligibility, feed-in tariffs for offshore wind power dropped to 3.9 cents. Today, guest author Philipp Schmagold explains that the rising cost of O&M at the end of the second...
Bernard Chabot is back today with a comparison of wind and nuclear in the "BICS" countries (BRICS without Russia). He points out that wind has boomed in China since the country got rid of auctions...
Miller is practically unknown among historians for his contribution to wind energy technology. He could be an unsung Hoosier hero for his invention of the pitchable blade tip.[more]
In the research for my forthcoming book, Wind Energy for the Rest of Us, I came across a lot of intriguing information about the development of wind energy. While fascinating, much of it is too far...[more]
Onshore wind schemes now being installed are being paid over 30 per cent less than what Hinkley C would be paid under the UK Government's current agreement with EDF if it was generating now.
Hundreds of turbines and towers are being taken down. Foundations must also be removed, and the site must be reseeded and graded, said Sandra Rivera, assistant deputy director of planning at Alameda...
But not only can renewables supply baseload power, they can do something far more valuable: supply power flexibly according to demand. Now nuclear power really is redundant.
Miller was an inveterate inventor and the Madison County (Indiana) Historical Society has an exhibited devoted to his work. It was here that I first saw a clipping of his wind turbine.[more]
Wherein we reconnect with a Dutch miller and learn of his campaign to preserve his adopted country’s watermills.[more]
I am continuing to update my web site by posting a series of photographs taken many years ago of Dutch or European windmills. There are now three new sub categories under Traditional Windmills: ...[more]
I've finally taken the time to post some pictures from my career in renewable energy and energy policy. Some date from 1976, possibly earlier. My memory of those days is fuzzy as they say.[more]
Experience with measures and innovations for grid integration in all these categories is given, from several jurisdictions like Germany, Denmark, and California, where renewables already provide...
I don’t have a good answer to that question. All I know is that I stumbled a cross a faded newspaper clipping at the Madison County Historical Society that pictured a wind turbine that I’d never seen...[more]
Finally an answer to a question that has gnawed at me for decades: Where did one of the great windmill manufacturers of all time get the name Aermotor? Why not Aeromotor? That was the way I’ve...[more]
Today I updated my pages on cultural icons of wind turbines to include two murals and a sign board in Tehachapi, California.[more]
I am writing this now to close the book on this sad little turbine and the whole “let’s put them on the roof” phenomenon. Stumbling across an obscure NREL field test report from long ago (see Power...[more]
The Kern-Kaweah Chapter of the Sierra Club will lead a hike among the wind turbines on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) at 9:00 am on Saturday May 21, 2016 near Tehachapi, California. The Sierra Club's...[more]
According to preliminary figures, the world has seen a new record in new wind installations, adding 63’690 MW within the year 2015. The total wind capacity of the world has reached 435 GW.
The good news is that just over 3.5 gigawatts was installed, putting 2015 in second position behind the roughly 4.4 gigawatts of 2014 and ahead of the previous record year of 2002 at 3.2 gigawatts.
“The feed-in tariff is still important as a driver,” Lewis said, “but there are other government policies and incentives that are continuing to drive the rapid pace” of wind power development in...
Renewable energy, presented as environmentally friendly and clean, must turn out to be harmful to humans and the environment. There's an ironic, vindicating righteousness in believing, as intensely...
Ogin, the Massachusetts-based ducted turbine company, has installed six of seven turbines in the San Gorgonio Pass near Palm Springs, California.[more]
In its fifth year of operation, Germany’s first offshore wind farm, Alpha Ventus, once again surpassed expectations. The first people (besides me) now say that feed-in tariffs for offshore wind are...
It seems to happen with every new technology. It wasn't so long ago that some people were convinced a photograph could steal your soul. We may read about that now and have a little chuckle, but are...
Danish authorities are to re-open an investigation into a diver’s death while working on an offshore wind farm in the German North Sea.
Wind power generation plant AES Laurel Mountain LLC has pleaded guilty to two federal misdemeanors in the deaths of hundreds of migratory birds five years ago at its Barbour County facility.
Wind Energy for the Rest of Us by Paul Gipe straddles two—or more—worlds. The book is about wind energy. It’s not just about small wind turbines. It’s not just about large wind turbines. It’s about...[more]
So we are backing up the cheap renewables with fossil fuels that are not so cheap, and the solution to that is to use the fossil fuels that are not so cheap all the time? That sum does not quite add...
There are 484 MW of wind in Ontario’s distribution system. CanWEA says that Ontario has 4,361 MW installed. So the IESO is missing 12% of Ontario’s wind production. If you add 12% to their number,...
2015 was another record year for wind power in Denmark, where turbines generated 42 percent of demand, topping the old record of 39 percent from the previous year. No other country has such a large...
Last year, wind power production in Germany increased by around 50 percent – and the country already had the third largest fleet of wind turbines worldwide.
Andringa said that Japan had the most attractive feed-in tariff (FiT) worldwide and that the company's local reselling partners were preparing to help deliver the shift from nuclear to renewable...
A prototypye vertical axis wind turbine is set to go into operations at the Iowa Lakes Community College Farm Laboratory. - See more at:...
Den Wind der Welt einfangen is part of series of retrospectives being issued by pioneers in the field of wind energy as they near retirement. Written by freelance journalist Dierk Jensen, Catching...[more]
Germany, as it happens, has a very strong culture of benefit sharing. I had a chat to my host about my experience on the outskirts of Ebersheim. She told me about a neighbour in the small town who...
The expansive title of Vaughn Nelson’s Wind Energy is appropriate as Nelson delves into such taboo topics as population, exponential growth, and exhaustion of fossil fuels.[more]
Wind Power for the World tells an exciting tell of hope and promise—how a small band of activists, dreamers, and entrepreneurs built one of the world’s fastest growing and dynamic industries. It’s a...[more]
Nolan Clark, an early wind pioneer, summarizes a lifetime of developing and testing wind turbines for agricultural use in Small Wind: Planning and Building Successful Installations.[more]
I am hosting the following spreadsheet file prepared by the Idaho National Laboratory that is no longer available or has been compromised. The xls file contains tabular power curve data for a number...[more]
In sum, another story of ill-advised “development” of a revolutionary Darrieus wind turbine with all the attendant hubris and hype. The sad saga cost the government of Quebec $350,000—money that...[more]
Its goal is to create a wind farm off the shores of Lake Erie and use wind power to replace fossil fuels as a source of energy in this region.
The capacity factor for solar PV was about 10% and that for small wind turbines about twice that of solar PV at about 20%.[more]
This year, it will have closer to a third renewable power, close the new target for 2020, which now stands at 35 percent. Moreover, the level of 20 percent – once thought hard to reach by 2020 – has...
It is understood that the man had been working on the €145m Meenadreen wind farm extension project when the tragedy occurred.
“Secondly caps to the number of turbines which can be built, hidden in the detail of the review, mean, for example, that just three 50-100kW machines and three 1,500kW machines can be deployed every...
Let this be a warning to you skeptics, critics, and debunkers of new-fangled wind turbine flim flam. It will come home to haunt you. Are you listening Mick Sagrillo?[more]
It was during this process that Colin Sinclair’s harness became entangled in the high-speed shaft coupling, causing him to be pulled in towards the shaft.
The answer is Denmark by a mile, followed by Germany then Spain. I'm pleased to see Canada in fourth spot, beating USA and the UK by a reasonable amount.
Wind power, which the transition needs the most, will suffer the most, especially on shore.
The company responsible for more than one-third of Germany’s electricity grid says there is no issue absorbing high levels of variable renewable energy such as wind and solar, and grids could absorb...
Presentation to the Sierra Club's Buena Vista Group, Bakersfield, California 5 December 2015.
Chabot examines Denmark's 2012 policy to address climate change and finds, surprise, that the Danes are well on their way to meeting their objectives--ahead of schedule.[more]
Wind covers 3.7% and solar PV 1.3% of 462 TWh of consumption. Wind & solar are seasonally complimentary. With current policies France is unlikely to meet its 2020 targets of 27% renewable energy...
The most challenging hurdle that the Mexican wind sector faces is the engagement with the local populations that own the land where major wind parks are intended to be set up.
In fact, buried deep inside regulatory reports there is official recognition that wind power does have substantial equivalent firm capacity.
“Up to a renewable electricity share of 60%, the addition of power storage devices is not a condition for the addition of solar PV and wind power plants… Even at high degrees of penetration (90% in...
The family of a commercial diver from Bebington who died on a dive at an off shore wind farm in Germany are demanding answers.
Siemens Windpower A/S and Fluor Ltd were sentenced on Friday and ordered to pay GBP 650,000 (USD 988,000/EUR 876,000) in fines after in 2010 a worker was killed and another seriously injured during...
Two companies have been sentenced after a worker was killed and another seriously injured during construction of an offshore wind farm.
According to a recent presentation by Danish Small Wind Association there are 1,000 wind turbines less than 25 kW in capacity installed in Denmark, representing a total of 8.6 MW. Small wind turbines...[more]
This document describes the up-to-date characteristics and performance of the reference wind turbines and wind farms using the principles and the design of the “Silent Wind Power Revolution” (SWR),...
This study assesses the feasibility and performance of micro-wind turbines installed at different hub heights at the Toronto and Region Conservation’s Living City Campus wind field test in Vaughan,...
State web site’s banner photo of a wind farm not shot in California.[more]
Fluctuating wind and solar power are expected to increase the need for dispatchable generators to ramp up and down quickly. So why has the operating reserve shrunk in Germany?
Federal regulators cited a North Dakota company for a serious safety violation in connection with the death of a 40-year-old crane operator at a wind farm near Elgin, Nebraska.
As I've expected for some time, there's a new effort to create and propagate health fears around solar power, given the rapid decrease in costs, and the rising threat it poses to incumbent generators...
There are reasons normally-rational people will angrily reject good science, and credulously believe bad science. We twist ourselves into awkward, dissonant ideological formations, and it seems...
Visiting Indiana in the summer of 2015, I drove up to Fort Wayne to see my friends John & Cindy Ewing and suggested we check out the museum. The museum has greatly expanded their collections since...
More than 3,000 people have signed a petition calling on the government to support small and medium-sized wind projects in the UK.
What the photos clearly show is that the prototype has abandoned the lobed mixer-ejector feature that was the hallmark of the design—and the justification for the hype that this turbine would be the...[more]
Results: (1) Infrasound sound near wind turbines does not exceed audibility thresholds. (2) Epidemiological studies have shown associations between living near wind turbines and annoyance. (3)...
Gretchen Tenbusch, health officer for Huron and Tuscola counties’ health departments, said she had looked at five death certificates of individuals supposedly dying from wind turbines. Her review...
From a scientific standpoint, wind farm syndrome fails the test of cause and effect, which generally has to fulfil two criteria: that harm from infrasound makes biological sense; and that there is a...
The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) has posted a video on youtube.com covering the 2015 Windmill-Wildflower hike sponsored by the local chapter of the Sierra Club. The 2015 hike celebrated...[more]
“Makes you wonder what all the fuss is about, really,” he says.
Results suggest accessing positively framed health information may reverse or dilute the effect of negative expectations formed from exposure to media warnings about health risks posed by new...
The most likely cause of nocebic symptoms is the misattribution of normal and common physical sensations to infrasound. This further heightens monitoring for such sensations, creating a vicious cycle...
IRENA has come up with a truly amazing app for global renewable energy statistics and information. In addition, an Italian has released an app that helps you find wind farms worldwide.
How do we practically achieve that? There are two key elements to refuting misinformation. The first half of a debunking is offering a factual alternative. To understand what I mean by this, you need...
Two weeks ago, we published a review of reports – all of them from outside Germany – on the GMA’s recent resolution on the health impacts of wind turbines. It is worth noting that there have been no...
Fad wind turbines do double duty for anti-renewable energy activists: they perpetuate false negative stereotypes of wind power, and then fail to deliver substantial quantities of clean, cheap power.
Denmark is a global leader in transforming its energy system to a more sustainable model, with high levels of renewable electricity and heat, and high energy efficiency. Its transformation is not...
A construction worker was killed in an accident Wednesday morning near Invenergy’s 73.5MW Prairie Breeze 2 wind project under construction in Nebraska.
I've received a response from the German Medical Association - a group that The Australian claims were moving to ban wind turbines in Germany. As I described, they weren't, but I thought I'd check.
Over the past few years, a dramatic shift has taken place in the type of wind turbine installed, as the US market shows. The focus is clearly on raising capacity factors by increasing tower height...
A farmer at the Capital Wind Farm recorded this video and sent it to us - it demonstrates a crop dusting aircraft flying among turbine
The judge should request the medical records of complainants from periods both before and after the operation of wind farms, to settle the matter of whether the complaints were sufficiently serious...
May 30th Danish wind pioneers are gathering at the Tvind school in northwest Jutland to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the start of construction for the world’s oldest operating wind...[more]
The Sierra Club was one of a number of groups that lobbied for the project, including the National Audubon Society, National Wildlife Federation and labor unions, when it was first proposed in 2009....
But many energy and environmental analysts, who see a switch to renewable energy as long overdue, have been dismayed by this hostility to a source of electricity that they see as much more benign in...
TSP Canada Towers Inc., a manufacturer of wind towers in Thorold, has pleaded guilty and fined $80,000 after a worker was crushed by components being moved along a line two years ago.
Costing about $400,000 to purchase and install, the four wind turbines at Rim of the World High School may end up being just an expensive piece of modern art.
The industry ministry have decided to draft guidelines on how to dispose of and recycle decommissioned solar and wind power facilities.
Providence-based Deepwater Wind recently secured financing for a long-planned 5-turbine, 30-megawatt pilot project three miles off Block Island. The turbines should be spinning by summer 2016....
Nuclear power covered a whopping 87.2 percent of power demand in France and 73.3 percent of power generation in 2013 (the difference stems from power trading). But because France’s nuclear fleet is...
By now everyone has seen the fawning news accounts—several times, no doubt—that a US company has installed two wind turbines inside—yes, inside—the Eiffel Tower.[more]
The planned remuneration is 0,33 € per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for units up to 10 Kilowatt (kW) and 0,20 €/kWh for up to 25 kW.
Yes, folks like me who work in the industry typically dismiss these ideas out of hand. We internalize a lot of processes and out comes, “nope, not going to happen.”[more]
Currently, there is no further existing statistically-significant evidence indicating any association between wind turbine noise exposure and tinnitus, hearing loss, vertigo or headache.
The Government has been urged to make urgent changes to the Feed-in Tariff after a new RenewableUK report revealed an alarming 77% drop in the number of new small-scale wind turbines.
Normally, Chabot's presentations are quite long and exhaustive. Today, this one is short and sweet – four charts, one for each country, and a single comparison of kilowatt-hours of electricity from...
In line with previous investigations, such as the one by Fraunhofer ISE, the AEE finds that storage across weeks at a time will “not become relevant until renewables make up at least 60 to 80 percent...
Environmental group World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is supporting efforts to increase wind power allocation in the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) scheme that gives incentives to renewable energy investments...
Scaremongering about the health effects of wind power is irresponsible. It causes enormous anxiety for some people and it threatens to derail a promising and necessary industry for this country.
The answer is that Germany has so far managed to integrate and balance high shares of renewable energy with very modest changes to its power system. Bigger changes will be necessary in the future,...
Spreading health fears can itself result in harm. A BBC Panorama report on the 'health dangers of wifi' warped a collection of already-flawed 'studies' to present the theory that WiFi causes health...
After years of writing about turbines that never came on to the market, and some where the promoters went to jail, and a whole lot of reading, I decided that perhaps this is one of those green gizmo...
Make no mistake, though, it’s a real hike, not the cliché walk in the park. The six-mile trip is rated moderate by seasoned hikers, but it has steep uphill and downhill segments, organizers caution.
The Evidence on Wind Farms and Human Health information paper was released on Wednesday and is the result of a review of more than 4,000 documents on the connection between wind farms and health.
By now I'm sure you know the score. America's anti-vaccination movement has steamrolled its way across the country, leaving a trail of sick people in its wake. Measles is back. Whooping cough is...
Creationism, climate denial and anti-vaccination rage: long before the measles outbreak in the US, a deep mistrust of scientists infected some strands of the American conservative movement.
Yes, there’s a wind turbine in San Francisco Bay. It’s probably one of only two commercial wind turbines in all of Marin County. Yes, it’s in a state park too. It’s been there for more than three...[more]
Boston and the communities around Boston Harbor have more commercial wind turbines than the entire San Francisco Bay, including one 1.5 MW wind turbine within Boston's urban core. Yes, it's a real...[more]
According to data released yesterday by German wind power association BWE and German engineering association VDMA (PDF), the country installed 4,750 megawatts of onshore capacity last year, up more...
Big energy firms such as Total, Iberdrola, E.On and Enel have together adopted a dominant position in trade bodies such as the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) and European Photovoltaic...
Tehachapi’s Windmill-Wildflower Hike is one of the longest-running such events anywhere in the world. Nearly a thousand people, from children to octogenarians, have taken the six-mile walk across...[more]
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued a notice providing new performance and quality standards that require certification of small wind turbines in order to qualify for the 30% federal...
In 2014, Danish wind turbines supplied what corresponds to 39.1% of Danes’ electricity consumption. This is a new record. As in the previous five years, more power was covered by land-based wind...
Many power grids around the world are already transitioning to high shares of renewables. The cases of Germany, California, and Denmark are among the leading examples. Germany has already reached a...
For the turbine in question, consumption was around 0.1% of total generation – so next time you see a story telling you that turbines are drawing power from the grid- stop and ask: “how much,...
German wind power production hit a new record level in 2014, though it only rose slightly – by around one percent to 52.4 TWh.
The Court dismissed all the appeals. In effect, the Court has confirmed the constitutional validity of the Ontario overnment’s system for approving and regulating wind turbines. The Court’s decision...
Wind into the Grid by Günther Hacker is an E-book in English about his experience trying to use a small wind turbine for his home in Germany.[more]
An ad in Die Zeit from 22 June 1990 posted by a German nuclear organization shows how greatly wind power was underestimated. And how nuclear never lived up to the dreams of its supporters.
An E-book by Günther Hacker in German is ideal for home wind experiments. Science teachers with a modicum of German will find it a font of simple wind devices that can be made from craft materials.[more]
There's also the quaint notion of shared responsibility for the public health. Such arguments get drowned in the nasty propaganda of anti-vaccination groups with neutral names. We speak of the...
While it’s great that innovators are still evaluating different ways to produce clean power, don’t lose sight of how amazing the more mainstream technologies already are: Electricity from the air and...
Ontario’s build out of wind capacity continues to increase the output of Ontario’s wind farms. The output rose from 5.9 TWh to 7.7 TWh, an increase of 30%. Wind supplied about 5.5% of Ontario’s...
“It was clear from the Tribunals’ decisions … that they assessed and weighed the evidence of the post-turbine witnesses in light of the expert medical evidence which they heard,” the judges wrote.
The Australian Charities and Not-for-profit Commission (ACNC) advised the Waubra Foundation that its status as a health promotion charity had been revoked earlier this month. The status gave the...
Children whose mothers were exposed to high levels of fine particulate pollution in late pregnancy have up to twice the risk of developing autism as children of mothers breathing cleaner air,...
To reduce global greenhouse gas emissions at a pace and scale that experts agree is necessary to avoid increasing catastrophic effects of global warming, we need a mix of renewable energy. Wind power...
For example, in mathematical terms, if over a 20 year period a wind turbine produces 7 million kWh of electricity annually, its construction will consume approximately 3.5 million kilowatt hours — or...
Wind turbines generally have little effect on the value of nearby properties with possibly isolated exceptions, a recent study of thousands of home and farm sales has found.
Getting planning permission for a wind turbine can be a daunting task, however there are many post-planning and other issues to consider too, explains Tori Heaton, planning manager at installer and...
Residents in two South Dakota counties expressed satisfaction with the opportunities wind development brought to their communities by two very different wind projects. Of 238 respondents, divided...
I also went to the vendor’s, Wind Energy Corporation’s web site, and all I could locate was a single landing page. Red flag #1. I also searched for Jack Phillips on Linkedin and his background is...
The first cool thing that jumped out to me while using the app was: “Wow, there are a lot of wind farms around here!” I knew Poland wasn’t bad with regards to wind power, and that Germany had a good...
Bavaria has the most PV installed of any German state. But southern Germany is going to lose quite a bit of nuclear power by the end of 2022, so Bavaria cannot do without wind power. It is hard to...
“Based on the concessions that we currently have, including Iloilo and the ones in Ilocos Norte, I think there’s a potential of about 550 MW,” EDC president Richard Tantoco told reporters Thursday...
Mount Mercer’s 64 turbines became operational in the middle of this year and a family living about one kilometre away is unsure “what the fuss is all about”. “We barely hear them,” said Stephen Kent,...
“Dr. Studzienny pled guilty to professional misconduct in four complaints,” said Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario Registrar Irwin Fefergrad when contacted Monday. Dr. Fefergrad said that...
The worldwide expansion of wind energy has met with opposition based on concerns that the infrasound generated by wind turbines causes health problems in nearby residents. In this paper, we argue...
To date, the evidence has been insufficient to support the revocation of a wind facility approval. This article reviews the legal basis for the dismissal of human-health based appeals.
The Pew Charitable Trust makes the same mistake, essentially conflating throwing money at a problem with policy support. The main purpose of feed-in tariffs (offered for all renewable electricity,...
Bernard Chabot is back today with a comparison of three scenarios published by GWEC and two of his own published by the WWEA. The scenarios show that one strategy would be best for the short term;...
The pocket bilingual dictionary is published by OffTEC, a leading provider of training courses for onshore and offshore wind industries. The dictionary is designed for trainee wind turbine service...[more]
The big waste comes with the nuclear investment. The problem with the ability of the electricity system to absorb more variable wind power supplies lies with the inability, and unwillingness, of...
I first heard of the East 11th Street windmill in hushed voices, over cafe con leches at a Cuban restaurant on Avenue C.
Instead Forest has spent over $500,000 of its taxpayers’ money to fight close to $600,000 in annual increases in local wealth. Does anyone really think that the citizens of Forest were fully informed...
Stephen Ambrose and Robert Rand are US acousticians who believe that wind turbine noise is somehow uniquely making people sick. In 2011, they were contracted by Bruce McPherson, a Falmouth...
Densely populated Japan is home to a mind-boggling number of golf courses. With so much land set aside for golf, how much wind power could be produced from the land area covered by golf courses in...
"The highest percentage believing [claims about wind turbine syndrome] (21 percent) was in Wisconsin, a state which has far fewer wind farms and where some political leaders have in recent years been...
California parents are deciding against vaccinating their kindergarten-age children at twice the rate they did seven years ago, a fact public health experts said is contributing to the reemergence of...
In other words, since 2006 we have witnessed a stabilization of Germany’s impressively reliable grid even as some 35 gigawatts of solar and 35 gigawatts of wind were installed on a grid with peak...
This is what feed-in tariffs do, fundamentally, by setting a fixed price for wind production which is high enough to reassure producers on their initial investment, and low enough to provide a hedge...
That is the point of feed-in tariffs, which provide stable, predictable revenue to wind producers, and ensure that their maximum production is injected into the system at all times, which influences...
Wind health impacts have been dismissed in courts across the globe. This Energy and Policy Institute report assesses legal cases in five English-speaking countries pertaining to wind energy. The...
. . . suggest that these wind turbines have not significantly impacted nearby property values. Thus, these results do not corroborate the concerns raised by residents regarding potential negative...
. . . support for onshore wind among the public is 67 per cent, with just 11 per cent opposed. Solar power is the most popular renewable fuel (82 per cent support) with offshore wind a bit ahead of...
According to the FT, National Grid said the closures should not affect the UK’s energy supply. “Demand is low at this time of year, and a lot of wind power is being generated right now,” it said.
Il est par contre possible d'expliquer ce que sont véritablement ces vapeurs de condensation qui se forment dans le sillage des avions, les contrails, étudiées par les scientifiques depuis les années...
The denial of deduction and causation is a necessary component in the concrete acceptance of extremely weak hypotheses, such as those underlying homeopathy, anti-vaccination fear-mongering,...
In the short to medium term the fossil fuel interests and their supporters – both witting and unwitting — are fighting the battle of their corporate lives to preserve the privileged position they’ve...
The conclusion is that the symptoms reported for people living near wind turbines identified by the WCO survey are not significantly different than those experienced by the general population, i.e....
My paper concluded that the claim was a factoid promoted by wind farm opponents for dramatic, rhetorical impact. The claim sits alongside other contestable claims made by wind farm opponents,...
The report stated that 'some 80,000 ha of national park were destroyed by a wildfire ignited by the turbine debris' and gave an Australian Broadcasting Commission report as a reference. In fact, the...
With thanks to the long-lasting science Crackpot Index, this Wind Crank Index is intended to provide a simple way to figure out how you should invest your time: helping the person understand more...
The energy payback period for the two turbine models are found to be 5.2 and 6.4 months, respectively.
Germany’s leading economics institute DIW has published a 36-page report in English on how the amendments to the Renewable Energy Act (EEG) will impact the cost of capital for wind power investors....
Sheerwind makes radically inappropriate comparisons between their long-disproven approach to wind generation and actually useful wind generation. The numbers show that they are likely about eighteen...
Even if Denmark had its own 'wind turbine syndrome' organisation, I strongly suspect the phenomenon wouldn't take hold. The Middelgrunden Wind Farm happens to be half-owned by Middelgrunden Wind...
Eurogate wants to make seven million kWh available with the wind power farm and also its newly constructed combined heat and power plant (CHP). Eurogate also generates power from photovoltaic...
Interestingly, Ireland recently saw its share of wind power peak at 50 percent of power demand, an issue that went largely unreported (why is everyone so focused on Germany?).
Nicely done map portraying the growth of wind energy worldwide from 1980 to the present sorted by country.
Smart people reinvent variations of these things fairly often. People get enthused about them, get people to invest, build prototypes which don’t work as hoped. The prototypes get abandoned and...
The former East German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern became the first German state to generate more electricity with renewable energy than its own domestic consumption. In 2013 the state on the...[more]
Based on the findings and scientific merit of the available studies, the weight of evidence suggests that when sited properly, wind turbines are not related to adverse health. Stemming from this...
The tariff for small wind between 20 and 200kW for all the connected turbines in 2014 and 2015 will remain 0.268 €/kWh
Sponsored by the Rotary Club of Kingston Environmental Committee in collaboration with Tourism Kingston and Tourism Wolfe Island.
Citizens of Greensburg live so close to wind turbines it is a bit astonishing. The local hospital’s turbine is just across the driveway, only twenty yards or so from the building. The local Best...
Logical fallacies are everywhere. Flick open the newspaper and hear the latest assertion from your politician-of-choice, and you'll see one being used to advocate a course of action, framed in...
Looks like the Wind Turbines won! Overall, supporters of renewable energy landed almost 70% of the vote, and the PC's, who made a big campaign issue of killing off renewable energy via the Green...
Vote Compass users overall say wind energy should be a significant source of Ontario’s electricity supply mix - but that view is not shared by respondents who identified as supporters of the...
A German startup launches a crowdfunding campaign tomorrow for its “wind kites,” and it is doing so by bad-mouthing the wonderful stuff we have. These folks resort to crowdfunding because people who...
If we allow ourselves to be deceived by the fossil-fuel industry and their fabricated worries about birds, then we will be refusing to look the future squarely in the face. We must end our addiction...
Half of respondents to national survey would welcome a new wind farm within five miles of their home
The government is considering increasing the capacity allocation for wind power projects under the feed-in tariff (FiT) program.
In an interview last September with CBC News, Studzienny said he refused treatment to certain councillors on M'Chigeeng and Little Current councils because he is opposed to wind turbines and was...
Evance have an innovative new windmill design 90% of the way through development and nearing the production stage, following the manufacture and supply of almost 2,000 of smaller windmills –between...
Windpower Ownership in Sweden: Business models and motives, the new book by Tore Wizelius helps English-speakers understand how Swedes have taken a sizable ownership of wind energy in spite of their...[more]
Basilio Brazao, a 19-year-old Brazilian construction worker, was working inside the turbine at the Earlsburn wind farm near Fintry, Stirlingshire on May 22, 2007 when he fell.
Quiet Revolution, the one-time manufacturer of an architecturally dramatic helical wind turbine, filed for bankruptcy on 15 April in London. Note: The following is adapted from the forthcoming...[more]
As detailed below, the Government's survey shows that the public is much more supportive of onshore wind - the technology they are determined to curb - compared to the technologies to which they want...
The college installed 80 miniature wind turbines on the roof of the nine-story building last week. . . for $240,000 . . .
A small airplane heading back to South Dakota after a Texas cattle sale crashed into a wind farm in foggy weather, killing the pilot and three passengers.
In the spring of 2014, Urban Green Energy (UGE) announced with much fanfare that they had completed third-party performance testing on a new product, the VisionAIR wind turbine. As press releases for...[more]
The urgent need for rapid decarbonisation of our electricity system means we have to research, build, test and deploy a raft of new technologies, all in a short time period. As new technology...
We can't prove negatives. If I tell you that there's a teapot orbiting Earth, and you can't provide evidence that there isn't, it doesn't mean that I'm right, or that there's a 50/50 chance that I'm...
In general, wind energy proposals were started by wind developers and firms who saw clearly that there was massive social license for wind farms in every survey and poll ever done. They typically...
Vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT) continue to get attention, press and R&D funding. Antagonists of mainstream wind generation continually point at them as if they were a superior technology. People...
I think windmills are beautiful. They harness the wind's power to supply us with heat and light. They provide local jobs. They help clean air and reduce climate change.
Daniel Wetzel at WELT reports on a new nationwide anti-wind organization recently founded in Germany. The name of the new lobby group is “Vernunftkraft” (reason power). I am not linking to them, but...
The world market for small wind has continued to grow: As of the end of 2012, a cumulative total of at least 806’000 small wind turbines were installed all over the world. This is an increase of 10 %...
Recently, the Australian Medical Association (AMA) released a comprehensive position statement on the curiously invulnerable issue of 'wind turbine syndrome'. One phrase from the statement caught my...
A proposed wind turbine installation near Camp Perry in Northwestern Ohio has recently been halted (see article) by environmental groups that turn out to have connections to the oil, gas and tourism...
The available Australian and international evidence does not support the view that the infrasound or low frequency sound generated by wind farms, as they are currently regulated in Australia, causes...
Tehachapi’s Windmill-Wildflower Hike is one of the longest-running annual walks among wind turbines worldwide. More than 800 people, from children to octogenarians, have taken the six-mile walk...[more]
GE's enclosed-lattice, five-legged space frame prototype, sited at the company's Tehachapi, California facility, is 97 meters tall . . .
Natural News isn't an easy website to browse. If you're conscious of the impact of the anti-vaccination movement, the content on the website quickly goes from mildly-entertaining weirdness to real,...
In China, wind power is leaving nuclear behind. Electricity output from China’s wind farms exceeded that from its nuclear plants for the first time in 2012, by a narrow margin. Then in 2013, wind...
Our analysis of the raw house price data for transactions completed within the vicinity of the wind farms yielded no evidence that prices had been affected by either the announcement, construction or...
Japan hasn’t seen an appreciable increase in wind power in the past few years despite the start of the feed-in tariff system designed to boost renewable energy, but it still has potential and the...
NIMBY — Not In My Back Yard — is a nice crisp acronym and gets bandied about a lot when discussing opposition to wind energy and other renewables. But it is inadequate as a categorization of the...
Creation Care merges faith with proactive solutions to protect God’s creation. Next week, the season of Lent begins for millions of faithful people around the world. To mirror the 40 days of Lent,...
Australia’s peak health research body has again found there is no reliable evidence that windfarms harm human health, but the Abbott government is promising to commission further “comprehensive”...
The draft Information Paper provides a summary of the available scientific evidence. Based on the evidence, the paper concludes that “there is no reliable or consistent evidence that wind farms...
This report takes the number of reviews published on the issue since 2003 to 20. And all have reached the same broad conclusions.
Since 1998 there have been 45 hearings held under rules of legal evidence in at least five English-speaking countries and four types of courts regarding wind energy, noise and health. Forty-four...
In a new study, researchers from Imperial College Business School carried out a comprehensive nationwide analysis of the UK fleet of wind turbines, using local wind speed data from NASA. They showed...
In solidarity with BWE, I’ve endorsed their campaign by taking the small step of including one of their themes in the banner of my web site. I’ve posted one banner in the original German and one...[more]
In a new study, researchers carried out an analysis using local wind speed data from NASA, and showed that the turbines will last their full life of about 25 years before they need to be upgraded.
Over the past few months, an interesting wrinkle on the vertical-axis-wind-turbines-are-better mythology has surfaced: that they are superior offshore and that many countries are investing heavily in...
It was an odd call. An ACE hardware store deep in Michigan called with a request for parts to the infamous Honeywell Windtronics “wind turbine”. Naturally I was curious why an ACE hardware store was...[more]
A wind energy firms' claims it will revolutionise wind power have been questioned by critics following a US$55 million investment in it by the New Zealand Superannuation Fund.
The following is an excerpt from my forthcoming book, Wind Energy for the Rest of Us. It is provided here in the public interest because of recent controversy surrounding FloDesign and...[more]
Feed-in tariffs only pay for power produced, which depends on the weather – and no one can guarantee that.
But today, 5 out of 16 of the nuclear plants are off line (source: Sygration ). That is 27% of our nuclear capacity, or 3400 MW. The nuclear units that are off line are 50% more than the total...
The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has finally approved the Feed in Tariff (FIT) Disbursement and Collections Guidelines, which will pave the way for an additional 320 megawatts of much needed...
The UBA study found 13.8% of land area suitable for wind energy; 49,000 km2, and that with contemporary wind turbines there is the astonishing 1,200,000 MW capable of generating 2,900 TWh/yr. This is...[more]
Of the wind turbines installed in 2012, only 28% were installed on green field sites in Niedersachsen and only 20% in Schleswig-Holstein. The rest were installed as replacements for existing turbines...[more]
Over the past five years, a few anti-wind campaigners with credentials unrelated to wind energy and its purported effects on humans have attempted to bootstrap themselves into the role of expert...
German wind power organization Deutsche WindGuard has published its estimates for newly installed wind power capacity for the previous year, and the results are better than expected. 2013 turns out...
More than 80 percent of Icelanders support the construction of wind turbines for energy production, as indicated in a recent survey carried out by Capacent Gallup on behalf of Landsvirkjun, the...
Never before has Energinet.dk incorporated so much wind power in the Danish power system as in 2013, and never before did the wind turbines generate what corresponds to more than 50 per cent of the...
Wind power was the main source of energy in Spain last year for the first time ever and also for the first time ever in any country, according to the industry association AEE.
These are real fears of unreal things. They are strongly promoted by anti-wind advocacy groups. It is strongly arguable that anti-wind advocates drive down property prices in the run up to wind farms...
As blogger Ketan Joshi has observed, unlike any other disease “wind turbine syndrome” seems to be a health problem that occurs mainly in English-speaking countries.
This summary reflects my view at the time. Key participants were acknowledging the technical failure of Vortec 7, but they couched their failure in arcane technical language at arcane conferences. [more]
In a surprising finding, a joint study by the University of Connecticut andLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center concluded that property values increased...[more]
An analysis of more than 122,000 Massachusetts home sales between 1998 and 2012 found no statistically-significant evidence that proximity to a wind turbine affects home values.
Archivists at the York County Heritage Trust have uncovered a treasure trove of records from the 1.25 MW Smith-Putnam turbine of the early 1940s. The museum archives records of the S. Morgan Smith...[more]
I am an advocate of the rapid development of massive amounts of renewable energy. I don’t see kites in that anytime soon. . .[more]
Eric Gillespie, anti-wind lawyer, received a great amount more of legal fees to fail yet again in this extensive appeal. You would think that the people who keep paying him would eventually realize...
Tired of hearing these comments about renewable power, but don't know how to reply? Saskatoon Community Wind has come up with a list of common wind power myths along with snappy responses.
Between 1 and 2 PM, December 31 2013, the last coal fired generating station in Ontario stopped producing power. No more coal will be burned in Ontario to produce power. The coal shutdown is the...
If you’re going to join the public debate on our climate and energy future, should you have to disclose who you work for? Or should you be allowed to create a front group out of thin air to attack...
It's hard to believe, but the tempest over wind energy may be losing speed. . . But now, in at least some parts of the province, particularly around Lake Erie, the statistics appear to show people...
You can find here wind-power generation forecasts, real-time estimates of actual wind-power generation, and historical wind-power generation data.
People have been living with utility-scale wind turbines for 50 years. Now they have great video cameras on their iPhones and access to YouTube and Vimeo. Here are a great bunch of videos where...
A new survey finds that the wind turbines in Freiburg, Germany, are once again very popular after a brief concern over the impact on bats. The strangest thing was the timing of the bat issue.
Highest Wind Prices in Europe—But Are They Too High?[more]
The knowledge from Faust’s book was translated into an active solar building program in the 1820s through the 1850s in Lower Bavaria, Hessen and Prussia. . . Faust’s ideas were implemented in...
Grand Jury for the Eastern District of North Carolina, Southern Division indictment of James Alan Rowan of Mag-Wind, Enviro-Energies.[more]
The tribunal found the current state of scientific opinion was that there was no causal link of a physiological nature between adverse health effects and wind turbines. It was given no evidence at...
What links the phenomena of allegedly stressed emus, dancing cattle and disoriented echidnas? Nothing but the ill-founded trend to blame anything and everything on wind farms
The most interesting places on Earth are the subduction zones where tectonic plates of science and emotion scrape relentlessly. Buried in these dynamic boundaries we find the most telling insights...
It’s been a long time since I’ve had anything to say about the American Wind Energy Association. To my surprise AWEA published a few photos from my collection in their recent calendar. One is of a...[more]
