A couple of articles about T. Boone Pickens, the man behind the Pickens Plan in the green media yesterday:

• Earth2Tech is asking about the reported loss from Pickens’ natural gas company, Clean Energy Fuels. A little unfair in the headline perhaps since the company has improved relative to the same quarter last year, and is showing increased revenues too.
• Energy Power Alternatives asks “T Boone Pickens - Visionary Or Profiteer?” Looking at the details of the plan, they seem to be concluding that the main component of the plan is the switch to natural gas for automotive use. It goes on to say that the wind energy component, which at best would supply 20% of the needs of the US, is included to “make his proposal politically more attractive.”

Interesting to see that neither of the articles have anything to say about his water project in Texas, and the controversy surrounding that project and the motives for the wind energy being to make it simpler for him to run a pipeline for his water project that we reported on a while back.

California utility companies are required to provide Power Content Labels to their customers letting them know the mix of power sources in the electricity that they use. Here in Alameda we have our own city owned utility, Alameda Power and Telecom, that provides a relatively clean mix of power. Other parts of California, including our immediate neighbours here in the SF bay area, don’t do so well.

The table below shows the projected 2008 mixes for PG&E and Alameda, alongside the 2007 mix for the whole state. As you can see, Alameda Power & Telecom is doing a pretty good job of using renewables (79% total when you include the large hydroelectric mix), whereas PG&E, one of the largest electricity utilities in the state, is still reliant on natural gas and nuclear power.

(more…)

Perhaps one of the more unusual ways to turn wind power into electricity, Dutch scientists have found a way to generate electricity by flying a kite! At first glance this idea sounds really strange. Why fly a kite to harness wind energy when you could build a more conventional windmill?

The main reason is that the wind 1km or more above the earth’s surface carries about 100 times the amount of energy when compared to the wind at tower height, at least in countries near the jet stream. The trick will be finding a way to make this into a reliable system that can be installed and operated economically.

[Via EcoGeek]

A number of people are questioning the reasons behind the Pickens Plan. The Zaproot video (right) is the first time I’ve seen it claimed that the plan is really nothing more than an attempt to green wash a business plan that is pretty unfriendly to the environment, and has been met with quite a bit of resistance.

The claim Zaproot is making is that the real reason Pickens is pushing his wind farm plan is to cover up the environmental damage that Mesa Water, one of his companies, would cause by draining the ground water from 200,000 acres of land in Roberts County, Texas and piping it to western Texas.

(more…)

In the first six months of 2008 the USA generated more electricity from wind power than any other country in the world. The previous number 1, Germany, still has more capacity (around 23,000 MW compared to 18,000 MW), but the winds were stronger here in the US it seems allowing the US to actually generate more power.

In terms of percentage of power generated by wind turbines though, the US is still a long way behind other countries at the top of the wind power table. Germany generates 7% of its electricity from wind power, Denmark 20%. The USA comes in with just over 1%.

(more…)

A few articles from around the web about wind energy this week. Wind energy is a clean, renewable source of energy, but often unpopular because of the unsightliness of wind farms filled with towering windmill towers. For residential use, the smaller vertical turbines, like the Sea Hawk pictured, fit in better and make almost no noise in operation.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Wind Energy
Over at the Energy Power Alternatives blog they have an article discussing the advantages and disadvantages of wind energy.

China’s Wind Power Set to Hit 100 Gigawatts
EcoGeek is reporting on China’s plans for wind energy. China is attempting to generate at least 15% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020; a new report suggests that they will likely meet this target. For comparison, the US is trying to reach 7.5% by 2013 (though Al Gore has challenged the US to meet 100% by 2018).

China is generating 6GW of electricity from wind today, and plans to increase that to 20GW by 2010, and 100GW by 2020.

The Right Wind Turbine for You
Over at WorldChanging, Sarah Kuck asks whether wind power is right for you, and provides some useful pointers for getting more information about residential wind power solutions.

The folks over at Green Upgrader found this video, and another one, that both make fun of the idea that coal energy is clean energy. The US has huge reserves of coal and generates over half its electricity by burning it. According to the folks at Coal is Dirty, that alone produces 10% of the global CO2 emissions. And that’s before you even look at the other emissions from burning coal (everything from sulphur dioxide to health-damaging mercury).

So, if coal is dirty, then what are the alternatives?

(more…)