• 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.

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.

It would be nice to see solar playing a larger part in that mix too. Perhaps over the next few years, as some of the larger solar power station projects come on line, that number will increase for both companies.

How does your local utility do when it comes to the use of renewable energy sources?

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.

Eminent Domain
The story goes something like this:

First, Pickens’ company, Mesa Water, buys up water rights to the largest aquifer in the US. But not everybody is that into the plan and some refuse to sell to him. To get around this, with help from some friendly politicians, he sets up a water district allowing him to use eminent domain to force the sale of the land he can’t get. Unfortunately for Pickens, even that didn’t work – there was still a lot of resistance to the plan.

Here’s where it gets interesting. According to the folks at Zaproot, the next thing Pickens does is put forward an amendment to a Texas bill that would allow the building of a pipeline alongside a power transmission line. And then we hear about the plan that will free the US from its dependency on oil. How? By creating a massive wind farm, starting in the very same area that his pipeline needs to pass through.

Green or Not?
So, is the Pickens plan a true attempt to get the US using more renewable energy, or is it just a ruse to get away with the creation of a water pipeline that would probably have dire consequences for the environment? At least Pickens has worked out that oil is not the way forward. Problem is that he might not really believe in wind power either.

The plan to use more wind power in the US is certainly good; hopefully nobody will fall for the trick of pairing it with a very eco-unfriendly water pipeline (that said, there’s so much of that in US politics that I’d be surprised if it didn’t happen).

As I mentioned in my previous post about the Pickens Plan, I think there are some good ideas in there, but it is not the best that could be achieved. And this doubt about the motives for the wind farm make me even more convinced that we need to come up with a better plan; one that is not subject to doubts about its motives.

[Via CleanTechnica]

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%.

Pickens Plan
Wind power plays a major part in the T. Boone Pickens plan for removing the US dependency on foreign oil. Pickens is the founder and chairman of BP Capital Management, and has spent his whole life working in the oil industry. Now though he says:

America is in a hole and it’s getting deeper every day. We import 70% of our oil at a cost of $700 billion a year – four times the annual cost of the Iraq war.

I’ve been an oil man all my life, but this is one emergency we can’t drill our way out of. But if we create a new renewable energy network, we can break our addiction to foreign oil.

And he has a plan to break that addiction, part of which includes increasing wind power generation from today’s 1% number up to as much as 20% (which the US Department of Energy believes is possible).

[Via GreenBlog]

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?

Solar
For many places in the US, solar panels on the roofs would make a great alternative source of energy. Some places around the world are already taking advantage of solar energy on many houses. CleanTechnica reported last week that 90% of homes in Israel have solar water heaters, and that Spain is following them. A week earlier they had reported that Hawaii had passed a law requiring a new homes in the state to be equipped with solar water heating.

I’m not a huge fan of laws that are so specific since they rapidly end up being out of date as technology advances, but I do see some value in having building codes that mandate some form of energy generation in each new building. While many cities/states are encouraging home owners to retrofit solar or wind power, it would be far more effective to have the systems integrated into new homes from the outset.

Wind Power
An interesting complement to solar power, residential wind power is certainly viable now. Unlike large commercial installations covering hilltops and plains huge windmills, a residential turbine like the Seahawk shown in the photo, will fit into most suburban areas.

For commercial locations, larger models are available generating up to 10KW from each turbine, and since they are vertically oriented, they can be mounted much closer to each other than the more conventional windmill type generators we’ve all see on the TV.

Tidal Energy
This one is not for most individuals, but for coastal communities a tidal energy generation system, which remains mostly below the waterline, might make a more aesthetically pleasing solution than large offshore wind farms like the one proposed in Massachusetts.

The Green Upgrader reports that one town, just 10 miles from the Cape Wind project, is planning just such an underwater tidal energy system. Residents of Edgartown, on Martha’s Vineyard, are planning to install 50 underwater turbines which they hope will power as many as 1500 homes.

Geothermal Energy
Another power source that is not really for individuals, but is being used in a number of places around the world to feed clean electricity into the grid. Here in California, just a little north of the San Francisco bay area in an area known as The Geysers, is the largest geothermal power plant in the world, currently producing over 750MW of power.

All told though, geothermal only produces about 1% of the world’s power today. There are also some disadvantages to it making it perhaps less clean than other renewable sources.

Biomass/Biogas
Among the other ideas out there is power generation from biomass, where plant material is used to generate power either directly (e.g. by burning it), or by using it as food for naturally occurring bacteria that then generate biogas (basically methane) which can be used as an energy source.

Another very similar idea is using the methane produced in landfills to generate heat and/or power. The SC Johnson manufacturing plant in Waxdale, Wisconsin makes use of methane gas from a neighbouring landfill and natural gas as fuel for its twin cogeneration turbines.

Hydro-electric Power
An older form of clean energy, widely used around the world is hydro-electric. While the power itself is clean, the impact on the environment both upstream and downstream of the dam and powerplant can be serious. Here in the US, the Colorado river projects are perhaps the most controversial. As well as generating power from two dams (the Hoover Dam and the Glen Canyon Dam), the Colorado River is also used as a source of water for Wyoming, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and California. Perhaps even more controversial is the Chinese Three Gorges Dam project. On the plus side, it will generate a lot of clean hydro-electric power, hopefully reducing China’s dependency on coal fired power stations, and reduce the potential for natural disasters downstream from the dam. But, as CNN reports, some feel the impact of the dam upstream might make for an environmental disaster, turning the man made reservoir behind the dam into a “stinking effluent lake filled with raw sewage and industrial chemicals backing up for 600 km (372) miles.”