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 I’ve added the glossary to my web site for both its historical content—many of the terms were in use during the 1980s and 1990s—and as a reference for the thousands of newcomers to the wind industry since it was first published.
Bürger-Windpark Lübke-Koog 25-Year Anniversary–A Review
By
Paul Gipe
Hans-Detlef Feddersen sent me a copy of a little picture book celebrating the 25th anniversary of Bürger-Windpark Lübke-Koog. He included a DVD video of interviews with the founders of the community-owned wind farm, the first of its kind in Germany and model for the thousands of projects to come.
Gårdmøllerne or Danish Farm Windmills–A Review
By
Paul Gipe
Benny Christensen knows his windmills. An early anti-nuclear activist and proponent of 100% renewable energy—a photo of him appears in Steven Borish’s Land of the Living—Christensen has now turned his attention to documenting the country’s long history of working with the wind.
The climate and air-quality benefits of wind and solar power in the United States
By
Lbnl
We find cumulative wind and solar air-quality benefits of 2015 US$29.7–112.8 billion mostly from 3,000 to 12,700 avoided premature mortalities, and cumulative climate benefits of 2015 US$5.3–106.8 billion.
Betz: Everything You Need to Know about Wind Turbines Was Written in 1927
By
Paul Gipe
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 I learn about wind energy, the more I realize how little I know.
Darrieus and His Vertical-Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTs)
By
Paul Gipe
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), he was a prolific inventor in a number of fields from ballistics to turbo-alternators.
URI Researchers: Block Island Wind Farm “Highly Unlikely” To Have Caused Whale’s Death
By
Christian Winthrop
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 explain from a scientific view why it is highly unlikely the whale’s death had anything at all to do with a turbine from the Block Island Wind Farm.
