Articles by

Paul Gipe

Centre d'Études nucléaires de grenoble (ceng) experimental wind turbine on a 1988 post card announcing a new postage stamp.

French Post Card and CENG’s Darrieus Turbine

By

Paul Gipe

Wind historian extraordinaire Etienne Rogier sent me a carte postale (post card) promoting a 1988 French postage stamp. The card depicts the postage stamp and an experimental Darrieus turbine.

Copes is No More: The Darkness Descends as the Last of the Independent Grocers Bites the Dust

By

Paul Gipe

We'd seen the signs before we left. For the past several months we watched the inventory disappear. Then they took out some rows of shelving, but the inventory continued to shrink. All signs we'd seen before at Green Frog.
Bolt in our bolt. the thump, thump, thump was not a reassuring sound, necessitating a tire repair saga.

Chevy Bolt Self-Sealing Tires Work But More Difficult to Repair

By

Paul Gipe

Motoring along at night returning from a meeting and suddenly I hear a thump, thump, thump. Geesh. We only had the car two months and now a flat tire.
Sheerwind on palmyra atoll pitch sheerwind cropped

The Nature Conservancy Clams Up on Ducted Turbine Debacle–Who Will Pay to remove it?

By

Paul Gipe

The Nature Conservancy (TNC), one of the nation's premier land preservation trusts, isn't talking about its failed investment in a ducted wind turbine debacle 1,000 miles from Hawaii.
Rtemagicc vadot on quote meme jpg jpg

Etienne Rogier on the Operation of France’s Post War Wind Turbine “Neyrpic”

By

Paul Gipe

French wind historien Etienne Rogier has published an article on French post war wind turbines in the latest issue of the house organ for the Fédération des Moulins de France.

FaceBook Comments on SheerWind Ducted Disaster

By

Paul Gipe

The following are comments to Another Ducted Device Dead: SheerWind-Invelox Bankrupt. They were so insightful I decided to repost them here where they are more easily archived.
Sheerwind06 jpg

Another Ducted Device Dead: SheerWind-Invelox Bankrupt

By

Paul Gipe

My inbox saw a flurry of emails 4 January 2018 to inform me that ducted turbine darling SheerWind-Invelox was bankrupt. While the event wasn't much of a surprise, it did take much longer than I'd expected.
Natural gas fired peaking plant among the wind farms of the san gorgonio pass. 2005.

Environmental Costs of Electric Power Generation in Germany

By

Paul Gipe

Oy Vey! It appears I've been following scientific estimates of the environmental costs from conventional electric power generation for at least 30 years. It's probably been longer, but I found documentation that I've been writing about this controversial topic since at least 1988 when Olav Hohmeyer published his groundbreaking study on the topic for Germany's Fraunhofer Institute.
Interior of our chevy bolt ev.

Bolt EV Works after Two Weeks of Idleness

By

Paul Gipe

We returned home after a two-week Christmas holiday. We found the Bolt where we left it. Always a good sign here in Bakersfield where cars disappear from the owners' drive way on a regular basis.
The law that started it all: the stromeinspeisungsgesetz or law on feeding in electricity from renewable sources.

Germany’s First Feed-in Tariff Law was born out of Rage against Electric Utilities

By

Paul Gipe

Germany's groundbreaking law on feeding renewably-generated electricity into the grid came about because of an unlikely alliance of two politicians from opposite poles of the political spectrum: Matthias Engelsberger and Wolfgang Daniels.
Our home evse with clippercreek hsc 40.

Home Charge Station–What We Use

By

Paul Gipe

Because of the increased interest in electric vehicles (EVs) here in Bakersfield--the oil capital of California--I am posting a few photos of our home charge station.
Chevy bolt ev is a pure battery electric

Our Lease of a Chevy Bolt and What it Cost Us

By

Paul Gipe

On 9 November 2017 we leased a Chevy Bolt EV for about the cost of a cell-phone plan. We chose the base model, the LT, with fast-charge option, heated front seats, and heated steering wheel. In our experience, these items should be standard on all electric vehicles (EVs) even in sunny southern California.