Revision of Wind Energy Basics Released

May 20, 2009

Wind Energy Basics, a new book by Chelsea Green, debunks the fads, fallacies, and the flim-flam around "new, never-before seen" wind turbines often featured in the media.

"As the world turns increasingly toward renewable energy," says outspoken author Paul Gipe, "people are looking for wind turbines that work cost-effectively. Unfortunately, hustlers, charlatans, and the simply inept are quick to seize on the public's fascination with wind energy and sell them wind turbines that perform poorly at high cost."

"Wind energy works and makes environment sense--more so today than ever before--but consumers have to be on their guard. It's buyer beware, especially with small, household-size wind turbines," says Gipe, a word-renowned authority on wind energy.

Gipe, who has written several previous books on wind energy, takes off the gloves in Wind Energy Basics. He debunks several trendy so-called "new" wind turbines as well as popular policies such as net metering.

Unlike his previous books, Gipe's Wind Energy Basics concludes with a call to political action, saying that there's no time left for half measures, there's no time to lose. He proposes that North America aggressively develop massive amounts of renewable energy as quickly as possible following successful examples seen in Europe.

But it will be Gipe's no-holds barred examination of vertical-axis, rooftop, and ducted wind turbines that will garner the most hate mail from the true believers.

He singles out one especially egregious example of a vertical axis wind turbine that, according to its promoter, was designed to be mounted on rooftops. After eviscerating the company's claims, Gipe concludes scathingly, "The company asserted that they were 'thinking outside the box,' a catchphrase of 1990s management gurus. They certainly were. They were not even close to the box. They were on another planet where the laws of physics don't apply."

Gipe is equally dismissive of "rooftop" or small "urban" wind turbines. "Urban wind works and there are excellent examples in Toronto, Ontario and Cleveland, Ohio, and elsewhere. But these are real wind turbines, producing substantial amounts of electricity. They are not small, rooftop wind turbines that hardly produce more electricity than they consume internally," argues Gipe.

Another technology Gipe singles out is wind turbines encased in shrouds or ducts. Much like giant funnels, the shrouds concentrate or augment the flow across the wind turbine's rotor. However, Gipe says, "Ducted turbines are often wrapped in mysterious, technical babble, such as diffuser augmentation. Even supposedly sophisticated engineers have been snared by what at first appears to be a startling new technology 'overlooked' for decades by everyone else."

"Do augmented turbines work?" Gipe asks rhetorically. "Yes, of course they do. Cup anemometers work too, but we don't use them to produce electricity because cup anemometers can't compete with modern, high-speed turbines. The same is true with ducted turbines. They have been tried--time and again--and found wanting."

After more than 30 years in the wind industry Gipe appears exasperated that inventors, and the consumers who believe in them, won't learn lessons from the past.

Most inventors rarely build actual wind turbines, warns Gipe. If they do build a wind turbine, they never measure its performance. "Of course, they wildly exaggerate the potential of these breathtaking new inventions," Gipe adds.

Throughout Wind Energy Basics the author emphasizes that consumers shouldn't pay any attention to inventors' claims until they test their turbines to international standards and publish their results for the entire world to see.

Gipe doesn't spare the favored policies of some renewable energy advocates from criticism either. He's particular indignant with the emphasis in the USA on net metering.

"Net metering appeals to policy wonks because it rarely threatens entrenched electric utilities, and it gives politicians--as well as the advocates who promote these policies--the perfect cover for appearing to take action on renewable energy--while doing little of substance."

Gipe's alternative? Feed-in laws. He says it's simple. "If you pay for it, it [renewable energy] will come." He suggests that only adoption of feed-in tariffs like those used successfully in Germany, France, and Spain can rapidly build the massive amounts of renewable energy needed in North America. And only with feed-in tariffs, says the author, can everyone, from homeowner to farmer, from small business to multinational, profit from the renewable energy revolution sweeping the globe.

Based on the success of wind energy, particularly in Denmark and Germany, Gipe introduces the concept of "community wind" in Wind Energy Basics. Rather than wasting time and money on questionable rooftop wind turbines, Gipe suggests investing in a community-owned or cooperative-owned commercial-scale wind turbine.

"The Danes pioneered the concept of community wind and nearly 90 percent of their wind energy is generated in this manner," says Gipe. "The Germans have followed suit and German citizens have invested more than $20 billion in wind turbines they and their neighbors own."

Gipe closes with a call to arms. "Let's put a renewable energy plant in everyone's back yard. Let's create an energy system for life. Let's do it."

Wind Energy Basics Revised: A Guide to Home- and Community-scale Wind Energy Systems

Chelsea Green Publishing, White River Junction, Vermont, available beginning April 2009, $29.95 USD, Paperback 8 x 10 inches, 224 pages, Color illustrations, charts, and tables, ISBN 978-1-60358-030-4, www.chelseagrean.com.