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
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Paul Gipe
2027 Chevy Bolt Owner Initial Impressions
This will take some getting used to, this 2027 Chevy Bolt. Our “Marina Blue Metallic” Bolt was delivered 20 February 2026. After one week of ownership I am still adapting the car to my needs–and adapting myself to the new driving experience. Nearly three years since GM killed the model, …
It’s gone. Our 2020 Bolt is no more. It was picked up by Carvana last night. The first-generation Bolt was the best car model we’ve ever owned. We drove two over eight and half years, averaging 140 mpg or 4.2 mi/kWh. GM replaced one battery under warranty for a bad …
During the late 1970s Germany’s ministry for technological development BMFT (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung) called Ulrich Hütter out of retirement to design a new wind program. He concluded that his 1960s approach still represented the state-of-the-art, and that with the technology gained since his StGW-34 turbine had been dismantled …
Today I publicly urged Bakersfield area congressmen Vince Fong and David Valadao to invoke Article 25 of the US Constitution and immediately remove President Donald Trump from office as unfit to serve. Article 25 differs from impeachment, which requires the House of Representatives to indict a president, and the Senate …
I’ve extracted rare footage of Growian I and II wind turbines from a promotional video by Nordex. The footage from the early 1980s to the early 1990s was taken by Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk. It is the only video I’ve ever seen of the two German turbines operating. Both turbines had a …
The Sierra Club’s Uriel Payan & Paul Gipe will lead a hike among the wind turbines on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) at 9:00 am on Saturday 16 May 2026 near Tehachapi, California. The Sierra Club leads the hike to spotlight a section of the PCT as well as the …
I’ve uploaded a series of films on historic wind turbines in operation to the Internet Archive. To help me keep track of them, I’ve posted the links and a short summary here. I’ve included some films in this list that are on YouTube.com as the provenance isn’t clear. Of course videos of operating wind turbines are quite common now, so I am limiting this list to those of historic interest.
Other Articles
Krugman notes that while the price of oil has increased, the price of gasoline has gone up much more quickly. Are oil companies taking advantage of the situation to extract additional profits? What do you think? The so-called US president — in his lucid moments — rails against renewable energy, probably because the fossil fuel industry has so generously supported his lunacy for their own private benefit. But Krugman suggested the UK and other European nations must be wishing they were getting an even larger share of their energy from renewables rather than natural gas, which would free them both from the idiocy of Trump’s delusions and the Middle East war.
Today’s spiking gasoline and diesel prices will push millions of people to seriously consider buying a new or used EV. When they do that, they’ll learn that they aren’t “soulless appliances.” Not only do they save money, but they’re more convenient if you can charge at home, and they have instant torque. They’re quieter, vibrate and shake less, and are generally just more pleasant to drive. In traffic, having access to one-pedal driving and HVAC without wasting gas idling make EVs the clear winner.
So how long do EV batteries last? It’s still too soon to put a precise number on it, because — as a group — the cars already on the road haven’t yet reached the end of the S-curve, the point when they will start to show massive performance declines. In other words, they’re not dead yet. Meanwhile, battery technology keeps improving. The oldest EVs, like Hajjar’s Model S, may not be the best indicator of how long newer EVs will last. Software systems to manage batteries have gotten more sophisticated. A lot of new EVs use a different battery chemistry — lithium iron phosphate or LFP — which lasts even longer than other lithium-ion batteries.
Donald Trump’s attack on Iran will have many unintended and unforeseen consequences. One consequence even I wasn’t thinking about, but which is already clear after less than a week, is that Trump has made a strong new case for renewable energy. The usual argument for promoting solar and wind power is that relying on renewable energy avoids the environmental damage caused by burning fossil fuels. This environmental damage includes, but isn’t limited to, climate change. In addition, air pollution imposes shockingly large direct and immediate costs by harming our health and reducing our life expectancy. But now we know that there is another reason for nations to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels: security. In a dangerous world, it’s infinitely safer to rely on the sun and the wind than to depend on fossil fuels that must be transported long distances, from nations that are untrustworthy, often exploitative and located in regions that frequently devolve into war zones. . . Donald Trump, hero of renewable energy? Who knew?
The US president has made the easily debunked claim that there are no wind farms in China
n terms of a new, cutting-edge distributed energy system, Ukraine may be racing forward with the zeal of a new convert, but even the planned rollout of renewables in 2026 won’t keep most of the Ukrainian population safe from Russia’s depredations next winter. Wartime Ukraine has the will but not the financial resources to revamp its energy production on its own. The nation’s largest donor, the E.U., is already contributing nearly $200 billion to Ukraine’s budget for military expenditures and humanitarian aid, including energy. The speed with which Ukraine blankets its territory with distributed energy systems could make the difference between surviving another punishing winter—or succumbing to its cruelty.
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.
