Paul Gipe
is an author, advocate, and analyst of the renewable energy industry. He has written extensively about the subject for the past four decades, receiving numerous awards for his efforts. Gipe has lectured before groups from Patagonia to Puglia, from Tasmania to Toronto, and from Halifax to Husum. He has spoken to audiences as large as 10,000 and as small as a private presentation for Vice President Al Gore. Gipe is well known for his frank appraisal of the promise and pitfalls of wind energy, including his stinging critiques of Internet wonders and the hustlers and charlatans who promote them. He led the campaign to adapt electricity feed laws to the North American market–the same policy that has stirred a renewable energy revolution in Germany.
Latest Articles by Paul Gipe
By
Paul Gipe
2027 Bolt Tips for Beginners and Newbies
Because I write about our experience owning EVs, I sometimes get a query “over the transom” as we say, asking for help or for an explanation. Recently I got a query from someone who just bought a 2027 Bolt. It wasn’t just a new car to them, it was their …
Uptime Tech News (uptimetechnews@substack.com) recently reported bids for both onshore and offshore wind in Great Britain. “In what is expected to be a successful tactic to keep projects on track and “focus on competitive price outcomes,” the UK government announced that maximum strike prices in AR8 will be the same …
In response to Peter Fairley’s excellent historical review of UMass’ Wind Furnace project in IEEE Spectrum, (See This 1976 University Experiment Spun Up the U.S. Wind Industry: A nuclear submarine veteran turned a truck axle into a turbine) I’ve posted my historical photos of the machine to Wikimedia Commons. The …
As in our previous trip to the Southern Sierra Nevada and return to Bakersfield, the 2027 Chevy Bolt matched the efficiency of the first generation Bolt on another trip to the mountains. (See 2027 Chevy Bolt Bakersfield to Bald Mountain Efficiency Bests 2017 Bolt.) On the 17 July we drove …
Previously, I explained how I find the kWh used during a discharge cycle on our 2027 Chevy Bolt. (See Finding kWh Consumed on 2027 Chevy Bolt EV.) Car Scanner ELM OBD2 is an app for your smart phone that with a compatible dongle reads data from the car’s CANbus (the …
I’ve been driving EVs for more than 12 years now and never been stranded nor “gone turtle.” Sure, I’ve had some close calls in the early days. And I nearly ran out of gas one night in the middle of Wyoming–in winter–with nary a gas station in sight. But I’ve …
On 11 July we drove our 2027 Chevy Bolt to Bald Mountain to lead a Sierra Club hike. This is a three-hour, 97-mile drive from Bakersfield on serpentine mountain roads into the Sequoia National Forest. Speeds were often—at best—40 mph. This was not a drive at freeway speeds! Why it …
Other Articles
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra is proposing free electricity for millions of California households during part of the day, arguing the plan could help lower-income residents save money while encouraging energy use when solar power is most abundant. Becerra unveiled the proposal Tuesday at POLITICO’s Sacramento Summit, saying his plan would offer free electricity during a designated midday window. The Democrat said he would work with the regulators, energy providers and other stakeholders to determine how this would be paid, but didn’t outline a funding plan.
The resurrected 2027 Chevrolet Bolt’s new electric motor and revised battery pack help to slightly increase EPA-estimated range — 262 miles compared to the 2023 Bolt EUV’s 247 miles. We went even farther than that in our independent Edmunds EV Range Test, going 290 miles on a full charge.
Had he lived longer, the Captain would almost certainly have railed against current U.S. energy policy. The U.S. government has never backed wind power as generously as he’d hoped. Wind supplied 10 percent of U.S. generation last year—that’s half the share in Europe—with offshore turbines providing only a tiny sliver. Federal support for wind power has been in a stop-go cycle since Ronald Reagan’s administration, and it’s hit a low again under President Donald Trump, who has vowed to stop wind power cold. As Trump boasted to oil executives in January: “We have not approved one windmill since I’ve been in office, and we’re going to keep it that way.”
Last Friday extreme heat forced early closure of Donald Trump’s Great American State Fair. Fortunately, the fair was sparsely attended. As some wags put it, tens of people had to be evacuated from the National Mall. Even so, 44 people received health assistance and 11 were taken to hospitals due to the heat. OK, shutting down Trump’s shabby, dreary exercise in self-aggrandizement was no great loss. Yet the disruption of Trump’s festivities is a harbinger of many disruptions to come. The brutal heat wave in the northeastern US — an event that would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change — followed an even more brutal heat wave in Europe.
Morris explained that the main benefit he sees with plug-in solar is that consumers are taking greater control of their energy costs and becoming participants in the transition to clean energy. He views this as part of creating and maintaining a political consensus that supports the transition, which is good for everyone. He also sees land-use benefits, with plug-in solar occupying otherwise unused spaces in yards and on roofs and balconies. His organization has calculated that widespread adoption of plug-in solar would meet about 2 percent of Germany’s electricity demand, which would reduce the need to build new power plants on undeveloped land.
The IEA projects $2.2 trillion will flow into clean energy this year versus $1.2 trillion into fossil fuels, a nearly 2-to-1 split of total global energy spending. Conflicts disrupting oil and gas supply chains, from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the latest U.S. and Israeli military action, are pushing governments toward power sources that can’t be embargoed.
The following pages include some of the photos from my collection, including both digital and scanned images.
My photographs have appeared in Popular Science, Sierra, Solar Age, Alternative Sources of Energy, L’Espresso, Air & Space Smithsonian, Windpower Monthly, WindStats, Renewable Energy World, and other magazines, in several engineering and physics textbooks, on brochures and posters published by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, by Friends of the Earth (UK), by the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the World Wildlife Fund.
