News & Articles on Wind Energy
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.
For newcomers to wind energy I’ve added pages from my previous books explaining terms used in the industry.
- 200 Term Multilingual Lexicon: The lexicon translates English terms into five different languages: Dansk, Deutsch, Español, Français, and Italiano.
- Glossary of Wind Energy Terminology: The glossary was written by Paul Gipe and Bill Canter in the late-1990s. I’ve added the glossary to my web site for both its historical content—many of the terms were in use during the 1980s and 1990s—and as a reference for the thousands of newcomers to the wind industry since it was first published.
LNG Shock, Coal Myths, & The Real Winners On The Grid
By
Michael Barnard
Coal was not the global winner of the Hormuz shock. It was a regional emergency beneficiary in a few LNG-exposed markets. Renewables alone did not replace LNG everywhere either. But renewables plus batteries, backed by hydro, nuclear, interconnection, and demand flexibility where available, already replaced enough of LNG’s daily balancing role in several major markets to overturn the old assumption that a gas shock naturally belongs to coal. The real strategic winner was not a single fuel. It was the clean flexibility stack, and the countries building it fastest are the ones rewriting what energy security means.
Dean Thomas Following in Father’s VAWT Footsteps
By
Paul Gipe
Dean Thomas, son of Robert Thomas, the designer of the Wind Harvest Vertical Axis Wind Turbine is still plugging away …
More on Wind Harvest History from Someone in the Know
By
Paul Gipe
I’ve previously written about the history of Wind Harvest’s Vertical Axis Wind Turbine from the mid 1970s. (See Wind Harvest …
As the oil and gas crisis drives the world economy towards another financial crash, green energy is the only viable future
By
David Toke
Let’s not make a secret of this. The world is hurtling at breakneck speed towards the worst-ever energy crisis. This will be worse than the oil crises of the 1970s. It could be worse even than the oil crisis of 2007-2012, the latter which triggered the global financial meltdown of 2008. Maybe it is small comfort to those billions of people around the world facing hardship in this developing crisis. However, out of the ruins we shall see a market and state-driven renewed drive towards installation of wind, solar, batteries and Electric Vehicles.
Paul Krugman: Renewable Energy and National Security–The wind and the sun don’t need to transit the Strait of Hormuz
By
External Source
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?
Putin Tried to Freeze Ukraine. Instead, He Sparked an Energy Revolution.
By
Paul Hockenhos
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.
